Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
by Sarabibliomania
Summary: "Amanda Jaclyn Reid. Born August 7th, 1984," Cameron began, listing the details as she wrapped the bandage around the knee and ignoring my flinch as it touched on the ripped skin. "More commonly known by history as Amanda Connor. Wife of John Conner, mother to his children and future joint leader of the Resistance." OC
1. Pilot

Disclaimer: I agree with those that commented that no line breaks is very hard to read and show have checked that before I posted. The (1), (2) and (3), was an editing technique I used but forget to delete. For those that don't like it because it's not Jameron it says on the summary that it includes an OC so you coming to tell me your displeasure with this is a little wasted and would be best spent on another story that has the couple you're looking for. I would like to thank "gypsy" for their kind words which were very sweet especially in consideration of the other comments that deflated my excitement for finally putting it up. I have the story planned to the very end (though not all of it written) so if you are asking me to make an major changes I say to you that it is my interpretation, it is already decided in my head and that you should probably write your own work if you are displeased with the direction of mine. Thank you and enjoy.

I adjusted my bag strap over my shoulder and fingered the fray of it so the threads grew soft on my skin. 5'10? Lanky brown hair in desperate need of a hair cut? Clothes that had never fit and were past the point of worn? He fit the description but it still felt off putting it all together. He looked young. He looked ... ordinary. Not what you assumed the future leader of the resistance to look like and not even what you imagined he'd start out looking like. He was too short, too skinny, too quiet looking too ... defeated looking. Like he had already known the world and it had broken him before the war had really begun. Not something to inspire hope in and certainly not someone to place all your trust on. But maybe that was the great irony of life that you never fully saw what was really there and had to fill in the missing pieces yourself when they didn't. Or something equally disheartening. I balanced my shoulder against the corner and rocked it back and forth, working various introductions back and forth in my head and cringing at the taste of each one. How do you make friends with someone when you have to plan out how it happens and the fate of the world may fall on its success? There was pressure within pressure to that and it made the rocking dizzying and I stopped mid rock, the edge grinding through my jacket and carving into my skin. I pulled my bag strap again over my shoulder and pushed off the wall and walked over to where he was fumbling with his locker, brow furrowed and tongue stuck between his teeth as he turned the dial back and forth to the various grooves and becoming more frustrated each time his attempts fell flat. Savior to our kind and he couldn't open a damn locker.  
"Having trouble?" I leaned against the one next to him and time having run out leaving me with the first "hello" I could come up with. It wouldn't go down in history – or maybe it would I didn't know – but it suited the moment and caused him to look up with the clear message in his eyes shyly asking me to "go away."  
"No. I'm fine," He nodded to book end his answer and turned back to the dial, turning it more carefully this time as if shaking hands had hindered his progress and steady ones would aid it.  
"Are you sure? Because ... this is my locker," I let the epiphany sink in and the dial dropped in his hands as he looked at it and an embarrassed grin crossed his lips and he laughed awkwardly, letting go of it finally and the metal clanging against metal.  
"Sorry," he said, laugh still in his voice and making it sound softer where uglier things in life had made it a rare sound. I liked it though. It made him seem friendlier. Younger and even more ordinary then appearances alone had suggested but ... human. Which I guess was the whole point.  
"First day?" I crossed my legs over one another and let the tip of my boot dig into the tile and work its way back and forth on the already dirtied floor.  
"Is it that obvious?" He smirked, bangs falling into his eyes and making them darker now that I couldn't properly see them. Green. Or possibly hazel.  
"Obvious but forgivable," I pushed myself off the locker which popped in the release of weight and turned as he did to walk down the hall, hands buried in his pockets and making them bulge low in the jean that was already half a size too big.  
"When is it not forgivable?" It didn't need to be asked but I could pick up on his encouragement that he wanted the conversation to continue and that – no matter how poorly executed – it was his attempt to flirt.  
"When you're an ass about it. The whole: New place, new me," I clicked my boots heel to toe as I walked to purposefully slow my steps and prolong the conversation as he did, hands at my sides and pulling at my bag straps so it tightened on my back and lifted almost up to my shoulders.  
"And that's not allowed?" He feigned confusion and grinned again, ducking his head and the bangs back over his eyes and shadowing his face and making it appear older and younger at once. A little obvious but endearing all the same.  
"I don't think it should be. Comes off kind of fake. I mean ... can a place really change a person?" I spun on the last word to face him and he stuttered to a stop, shy again in full and sweeping his hair back from his eyes and trying to hide how flattered he was at the attention though the point lost now that I could see his eyes and the sparkle that deepened the colour. Green. Definitely green.  
"I don't know about a place but ... a person might," He smiled, cringing as he said it but looking hopeful that it might have struck a chord and sent butterflies in my stomach. I fumbled on a laugh despite myself, brushing back my hair and glancing up at him through the strands as if I was flattered and tugging on my sleeve under the illusion to hide shaking hands.  
"Just might," I encouraged him and taking his bait as if it were his idea. Not disappointed he pulled on his own bag strap and fiddling with the adjustment to match my own actions – the two of us already in sync. A shrill ringing interrupted the "moment" and startled us both as I followed his laugh and glancing up at the peeling red bell high up on the wall and cursing it's "opportune" timing.

"You'll be responsible for three chapters a week ...," Mr. Ferguson droned and I watched him as he tried to pretend that I wasn't and that he didn't want to turn and check to see if I wasn't. He was running his fingers back through his hair and revealing the holes dotted along the cuff and poking strands through as it passed. He barely turned his head, still running his fingers through under the illusion of not looking while looking and saw that I was and nervously smiling. I returned it with an added blush I knew he wouldn't be able to resist and he grinned, flustered that I was watching and that I was supposedly affected as I was. It shouldn't have been this easy. Not something text book or that you could learn off the internet but here he was just as flattered as any teenage boy would get and with nothing more than a few sly smiles and a shirt low cut enough to get the blood pumping where it shouldn't be.  
"...Make up test with a parent's note," Mr. Ferguson turned, glasses glinting on his nose and I bowed my head to my desk as it passed, waiting for him to turn back to the chalkboard and continue with what none of us were listening to. Well ... maybe those who actually thought they had a future to study for but I knew better. I glanced between my strands of hair to look over at him again and saw that he had returned his attention to the front, leaning his head on his arm and nervously scratching at his desk. I leaned my elbows off my notebook and ripped off the page I had half heartedly written notes on and scrawled awkwardly between the lines and folded it into fourths before leaning over to slide it under his arm and onto his desk. He jumped as my fingers touched him and threw a glance at me before back to the paper and unwrapping it in his lap: _My name is Amanda. _He turned back to look at me and I tucked my hair behind my ear, folding my hands back over the notebook and crinkling the edges of the paper. Persuaded he turned back to it and quickly wrote on the other side, pen scratching against the paper in his urgency to write back and the page ripped out from his hands as Mr. Ferguson stopped at his desk and took it for himself.  
"I'll take that," he confirmed, quickly reading both sides and staring down his glasses at me as I innocently smiled back, hand tucked under my chin and the image of a perfect student. Something less easily found on the internet.  
"As I was saying ...," He continued, folding his hands behind him with the note still between his fingers and walking back to the front. His head fell slightly, defeated as he apologetically threw me a glance and straightened in his seat to physically give himself the appearance of someone ready to learn though as I was he wasn't mentally into it. Mr. Ferguson reached the front and tossed the note into the trash can and even though I couldn't see it I knew what it said: _My name is John. _John Connor.

I sat against the racks that held up the bikes and shielded my eyes from the piercing New Mexico sun and over the students milling over the white polished steps and eager to get home already less than a week into the school year. John appeared out of the crowd of them and I straightened so he could see me better and my attempts not gone un noticed he made his way over to me, smoothing back his hair with his hand and pulling at the cuff on the opposite arm.  
"Sorry about that," I said as he came within speaking distance and digging my boot tip into the concrete.  
"No it's cool," He shrugged, hands again back in his pockets and swaying back on his heels as his hair moved with him and hiding his eyes from mine as disconcerting as it was.  
"I'm Amanda," I held out my hand to him and he squinted at it before taking it with his own and shaking it gently, fingers trembling on mine and the feel lingering after they dropped.  
"I know. That part I saw," he laughed slightly before taking note it wasn't funny and saving me the trouble of having to lie. "I'm John. John Reese."  
"Like Reese's pieces?" I cringed as I said it but the damage already done and my stupidity out in the open. He didn't seem to mind though and was better at pretending it was funny then I would have been.  
"Not exactly but it's a nice thought," he smiled warmly and despite myself I returned it of my own free will, lines creased into his cheeks and making him look even younger and more approachable then I had originally surmised. A distinct honk echoed through the chatter of students and I turned to look over at my shoulder at the dusted trunk parked up to the curb and the recognizable blur of a shape sitting in the driver's seat.  
"That's my sister I should probably go," I jerked my thumb behind me to further clarify and stepped back as I did, dirt crunching under my boots and dusting up the sides.  
"Yeah of course," he said, disappointed but hiding it. "I'll see you tomorrow?"  
"Definitely," I bit my lip so my eagerness was visible and he grinned one last time as I turned away and jogged past the other kids in my way and to where the wheels touched the pavement. I gripped the car door handle and jerked it open with a screech stepped inside and onto the patchwork seat that used duct tape as its only solution. I slammed the door shut behind me and tossed my seat belt onto the floor, Cameron stiffly sitting next to me and watching out the window where John presumably still stood.  
"You got him?" She asked, eyes still locked from mine and fingers tight on the steering wheel where she was still learning that skill not strength was necessary.  
"Got him," I said, pulling on my seat belt and kicking my bag so it didn't cover my feet and to the front where the engine visibly hummed.  
"Good," her eyes barely shifted as they followed him, chin turning slightly and in the light making it look shiny and almost plastic. I looked away, more comforted by the illusion then reality and running my nails along the lines of the rolled down window.  
"Now what?" The metal was hot and burned my fingers but I carried it through until it curved up into the roof before finally pulling away.  
"Now we wait," she jerked the truck out of park and it bumped against where it got too close to the curve and back onto the crowded road. I glanced over the crowd still on the steps and saw John standing in front of them, standing alone amongst everyone else and watching me as I went. He lifted an arm in the make of a wave and doing my part as always – I returned it.

He was wearing plaid today. Nicer colour and in better shape and his hair was combed back as I took the chance at the empty seat beside him and sitting on the hard plastic chair.  
"Hey you," I said, tossing my bag at my feet and edging it away so it leaned against the leg. He partially smiled, unsure whether I was teasing or flirting and not sure how to reply to either.  
"Hey ... you," he tried it himself and made it more sincere then I did and smiling fuller as he said it and probably hearing it as badly as I had said it.  
"I like your shirt," I said nodding at it and he glanced down at the red and white lines crossing back and forth on front and seeing nothing special and awkwardly nodding to show he thought so. I turned back in my seat, inwardly swearing and digging my fingers into the edge of my desk so the slivers dug under my nails. I was off my game today. In motion and not sure whether to look ahead or at my feet and unable to accomplish both. The bell rang and I reached under my desk for my bag and pulling out my notebook and flipping to the second blank page of the book and writing the date neatly at the top.  
"Mr. Ferguson is ill today," A man with a serious face and jet black hair said, walking in through the doorway and propping his brief case up on his desk. "My name is Cromartie." He scanned the classroom of still half full seats and his eyes lingered on me thoughtfully before moving onto John and so forth. I adjusted myself in my seat, pushing back my chair so my legs were no longer trapped under my desk and instead halfway into the aisle.  
"Is that your only name? Like Madonna?" A girl I didn't know asked from several seats behind me and slumped in her chair more casually then I had any longer allowed myself.  
"Madonna?" He asked, confused and tossing his jacket to the desk. "Why? No." A couple people laughed and John looked over at me to see if I found it funny but I didn't. My heart rate was getting loud in my chest and the edges of my vision were beginning to blur in the beginnings of unrestrained panic.

"Let's take attendance then," he pulled out a notebook of his own and tossed it to the desk before sitting behind it and becoming half his size when he did. "Mary Booai?"  
"Here," the girl who had spoken up earlier said, bronze curls heavy over her shoulders and not an inch of her amused.  
"Donald Chase?" He lowered his eyes again to the list and dropped a hand to his side. My fingers were shaking and tapping noiselessly against the desk top.  
"Here," Someone else called it from the back of the class but I didn't bother to check.  
"Amanda Reid?" His voice got louder as he said it and his head raised as he looked over the classroom, eyes narrowed as he took in each one of us. "Amanda Reid?" John looked over at me, confused and one or two others who knew me by name wondering why I didn't answer.  
"Here," my voice came out quiet but he heard it anyway and eyes locked onto me as I answered and an almost red gleam faded in his pupils.  
"Reese?" He didn't take his eyes off of me, didn't need to look back down at the page for the next name. "Do we have a John ... Reese?" John raised his hand in confirmation before lowering it and I could feel my heart rate slow into distinct beats, waiting for what was next.  
"Excellent," He said and there was a click of metal and without thinking I threw myself from my chair and knocking John to the ground as gunfire exploded over my head and echoed as everyone else started to scream. We hit the ground hard but I only pushed at it and grabbed him by the shirt and forcing him into a run, holding low and behind him to protect his body with mine and jerking behind the lab table and to the desks behind it. The floor was slippery under my boots and desks and chairs were an obstacle course I hadn't memorized but he moved ahead of me as he had doubtless done a hundred times before and glass exploding as Cromartie continued to miss his target. Get to an escape. Get to the parking lot. Get to Cameron. Keep John safe and if possible keep myself alive in the process. One of the back windows loomed in front of me and I dug my fingers into the back of John's shirt and forced him to it, turning at the last minute and slamming my side into the glass and feeling it shatter through the layers of clothing and skin. My stomach dropped from the short fall and I hit the ground hard, a sickening vibration pinning me to it and making my head scream that I hadn't prepared myself for that and even if I had it wouldn't have appreciated it. John was beside me, gasping as he lifted his head and fisted his fingers into the grass to raise him and noticing me still beside him. In shock for a second he didn't recognize me but we didn't have that second and I dragged myself to my feet, my legs burning from the impact, and grabbed him by the shirt and to his own feet.  
"Run!" He grabbed my hand and was now pulling me as we ran across the courtyard to the low hanging wall, digging his shoes into the jutted rock and taking me alone with him and my bones seeming to snap and scream at me as I made my way over top and jumping to the other side. I fell to my knees and pushed off of my hands as he landed next to me and we were again running into the parking lot and blood now smeared across my palms. I didn't know how it got there or even if it was from me but I could taste the metallic of it on my tongue which in itself could have just been another injury. We slid in behind a school bus parked some feet from the wall and I fell over and retched onto the gravel, the insides scraping against themselves and every breath hurting so it felt like I was trying to swallow needles.  
"Who are you?" John demanded, breathless as I was and I turned to look over my shoulder at him, half perched against the wheel and eyes wild with panic.  
"Amanda," I gasped, not the time to explain more and crawling to my feet to check the reflection of the mirror and the glass of it shattering with another bullet as a warning that Cromartie was on our tail.  
"Run!" I was off again, John at my side and windows exploding over our heads in showers of glasses and crunching where it fell into my jacket and hair. Run. Don't think. Run. We skidded past the end of the safety of the bus and into the parking lot and ducking to hide behind the smaller cars dotting the parking spots. There was a crunching sound followed by a screech that tore at my ear drums and I slid to a stop behind the trunk of a grey SUV and saw the bus dusted and on its side and Cromartie stepping on top and over it, the sun catching off his cheek and even from here turning it artificial. The illusion may be more comforting but the reality was still there. Cromartie scanned over the parking lot and I lowered my head behind the trunk and tried to breathe shallow to slow my heart rate and stop the needles bleeding in my throat. I needed Cameron. I needed a gun. I needed to keep John safe at all costs and myself if possible in the process. I looked over at him to make sure he was still there and he watched me also, breathing hard and confused like he was trying to figure out who I was and doing it in the compressed amount of time.  
"We need to get to Cameron," I said, swallowing hard and tasting metallic now in my throat and where it was growing colder and leeching into my stomach.  
"Who's Cameron?" He demanded, breathing still hard and blood dripping off his finger from a cut on the back of the hand. Just as long as it wasn't a bullet wound.  
"She's ...," Gunfire cut off my sentence and he grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me off and past the end of the car and down the line of others, my fingers scrambling and pushing off the gravel to keep running and the ends of them becoming numb and bloody. Get a gun. Get to Cameron. Keep John safe and screw it whether I died or not. Glass broke and roared over our heads and I shoved him to the ground where we had somehow gotten to the same pace and shielded myself over top of him, my arms over his head and pressing down on his back. Get to Cameron. Keep John safe. He grunted under my weight and I eased enough off so he could breathe and looked back and forth between the cars and for which one I could hot wire or had a hidden set of keys. There were too many options and each one with time I couldn't afford to waste. Metal squealed against metal and I lifted my head to see Cromartie in front of us, gun raised and no time to run. Keep John safe. Cromartie's head slammed back as a truck suddenly hit him and he disappeared behind the line of other cars as tires protested and metal grinded on metal. The sound stopped and back tracked as the truck backed up and the door screeched open with Cameron at the steering and leaning sideways over the seat.  
"Come with me if you want to live," she said, eyes locked on us both and relief hitting me so hard I thought I might cry but resisting the urge and quickly climbing off John so he could make it to the door. He allowed me in first and I scrambled into the center seat as he followed and slammed the door behind him, Cameron starting the car again before it was even properly closed.

"Are you okay?" Cameron asked it more like a fact then a question and I glanced over to where she was still focused on the wheel, only in the event of my imminent death worthy of attention.  
"I'm fine," I breathed, knees and hands burning from where they suffered the brunt of my run but my breathing almost back to normal though there was a metallic taste I could now feel in my stomach. I could throw up when we stopped.  
"What about John?" Again it was more fact then question and again she didn't look over as she said it, eyes still trained on the steering wheel and the dusted field on either side of the road. I looked over to where he sat next to me, our knees touching and his shirt dotted with blood. He raised his eyes from his arm on the window and stared back at me in panic, still not sure who I really was and rethinking his original thoughts in place of the ones he was having now.  
"He's alive," I said shortly. He raised his eyebrows at me, disbelieving that I could grind down okay to simply being alive and not understanding that in the grand scheme of things it was the only thing that mattered.  
"He'll live," I adjusted his answer in hopes he would stop looking at me like that and turned to look back out the window, the blue of the sky fading and dirtying when it touched the dusty horizon.  
"You should call your mother," Cameron said, fishing into her pocket and holding out the battered cell phone she used to contact me and my own probably still back in the classroom either blown to pieces by gunfire or for the time being untouched. I took it from her and held it out to John who flinched as I did, pinning himself back against the corner and despite what we just went through not willing to let me touch him without cause. I ignored the slight and continued to hold it out to him until he cautiously took it from my fingers and flipped it open to start pressing at the keys. I dropped my now empty hand onto my torn knee and examined the now drying blood on both and the flakes of it fading to a sickly brown.  
"You can clean up when we stop," Cameron said pointedly, catching me looking and assuming that that was the problem. I didn't correct her and pulled my sleeve down over my hand to cover it and my knee in one and ignoring the sting that poked needles sickly under my skin.  
"Mom? Mom?" John asked into the phone, leaning onto the car window and away from us, his sleeve stretched over his shoulder and the fabric of it torn and looking like it itself had been dipped in red. "Listen to me, okay? They're back. It's back." He paused, listening to what she was saying and the wind rustling through his bangs. They never left, I wanted to tell him but bit my tongue instead. "I'm going to the house ... Mom!" He pulled the phone away from his ear and turned back to us as if surprised to see that we were listening and pointedly hanging up the phone.

I sat on the edge of the seat, resting my chin against the end of the gun and running my fingers along the sides and to the trigger. I felt safer now that it was in my hands but appreciated the irony of how easily it could backfire. All it took was one pull of the trigger and it was blood and brains on the dashboard. John watched me at a safe distance, leaning against the outside of the truck and to its back, arms crossed and visibly inching away as if torn between being afraid of me and hurt that he now knew my "introductions" had ulterior motives.  
"Who are you?" He asked again, not afraid enough to not ask but still cautious and glancing at his house where Cameron had just answered and we were told to wait just outside of.  
"I told you. I'm Amanda," I flipped the gun onto its side and lay it across my side and away from John so that if it did backfire it would hit the engine instead of him. Get to Cameron. Get a gun. Keep John safe.  
"That doesn't answer my question," he said, foot tapping against the other and agitated by his unanswered question and whatever else was going on inside.  
"It will," I said flatly, not the time to explain everything in full and not looking forward to when I eventually would have to. In my head it could be rewritten and styled like a joke but out loud – and like Cameron had said it – it was cold and unforgivable and I just wasn't ready yet for that. Gunfire popped and echoed inside the house and John made a violent move to the door that I stopped before he could finish and standing right in front of him, gun still in my hand and the threat there but empty.  
"Cameron said to wait out here," I said, edging to the left to block his view and the gun heavy at my side and to my hip.  
"That's my mother in there," he said through grinded teeth, barely taller than me and whatever fear of me he had a moment ago hardened and now angry.  
"And Cameron said to wait out here," I repeated it through my own teeth, close enough that he couldn't miss it this time and gun now out from my side so he could see it better and hopefully not pick up that it was an empty threat and that I knew it better than he did. He glanced down at it from my side then back up to meet his eyes, hair obscuring their colour and hiding whatever he was possibly thinking.  
"If I'm supposed to know who you are then you must know who I am. And that that gun is an empty threat," He shoved past me before he could finish and ran off down the driveway before I could stop him, dust kicked up from his shoes. I stared after him, frozen for a moment and the last few seconds sinking in slower than they should have before following him, half angry that I had let him get past me and the other half in denial that it had been him this time to kick me under my feet. Crashes and gun shots were louder now closer to the house and I snuck up behind John and shoved him down lower so he couldn't be seen by the window and my gun over his head where I could more easily aim it and hopefully not clip him in the process of doing so. A crack of marble broke out through the open doorway and John broke free of my hand and ran for it and without thinking I followed, that three world mantra I had been forced to think – and now live – by drumming itself in my head: Keep John safe. I followed after him as he disappeared through the splintered doorway and into the house just inside, a wall dividing the first two rooms ripped and crumbled onto the floor and a woman turning from behind the wreckage, gun in hand. I aimed my own back at her, finger on the trigger but lowered it as she did as John stumbled over the cracked wall and plaster to join her at her side.  
"Next time you do what you're trained to do," she told him harshly, gripping at the front of his shirt as if torn between relief and anger and finding that uneasy middle between the two. "You run. Go!" John obeyed and turned; forced by her hand at her back as I followed at his side and the woman – Sarah – froze for a precious second to stare at me before pushing down any questions and following us both outside. I kept one hand on John's shoulder as he ran ahead of me and turned at the end of the truck to push him to one side and ran over to the drivers. Sarah followed after me and pushed ahead to pull open the door and climb in first, leaning back so I could crawl over her but not giving up her spot at the wheel. No time for arguments I crawled over top of her and to the middle as John slid into the other side and slammed the door shut with a screech of metal that had been forced open and closed too many times. The engine roared and the seat jerked beneath me as Sarah pulled out of the driveway and kicking up the dust behind us so everything faded and blurred and I struggled with my seat belt least I fall into John mid turn and make things even more uncomfortable then they already were. The tires screeched in the dirt and I turned back to look over my shoulder for either Cromartie or Cameron – whichever one won out – and gun still tightened in my fingers in preparation for the wrong one. Something running took shape in the dirt and became thinner and more feminine as it came closer and leapt onto the back with a shudder that made both John and Sarah jump and turn despite the driving hazard. She stared at me for a moment, making sure that I knew it was her, before climbing around to the side of John's door and pulling it out mid turn and getting in beside him so that the four of us were crushed together in the front seat and John's knee pressed hotly into mine and I bit my lip to keep from crying out as his jean jerked against my torn flesh.  
"Did you stop him?" Sarah asked, breathless and glancing back and forth from Cameron to the road and somehow managing to keep her attention on both.  
"120 seconds and the system reboots," She said flatly, the road blurring out behind her and making it hard to keep eye contact. "I was here to protect John and his ..."  
"Not now. Not yet," Sarah cut her off, eyes back to the road and gripping the wheel so that her knuckles were turning white. Cameron took the hint and settled back against the door and somehow managed to stay upright when Sarah turned sharply on a corner and threw the rest of us against each other and tearing my knee open again and making it bleed anew.

I flinched as Cameron dapped the disinfectant against my knee and coldly holding her hand underneath my leg to hold it upright and still as the sting touched again and I dug my fingers into the stacked boards I was sitting on.  
"You have to remain still," she said simply, pulling away the gauze she had dipped it in and leaving stains of blood on the cotton. I bit the inside of my lip as she worked her away around the torn skin and over the crusted blood that wasn't as dry now that the hectic drive had cut it open several more times. "You don't want to get infected." I resisted the urge to tell her to fuck off or the like and instead looked over at the fire burning in the trash can between Cameron and me and Sarah and watching the orange and red flames char at the already rusted metal. Sarah was watching me, leaning over her arms balanced on her knees and gaze thoughtful as she took me in with more time and patience then John did and assessing each detail as it occurred to her.  
"Who are you?" She asked, voice low and interrupted under by the sound of the crackling flames.  
"My name is Cameron," she said, setting down the bottle and unwinding a roll of bandages and measuring the distance it would have to take around my knee. "I was sent here to protect ..."  
"Not you. Her," Sarah jerked her chin at me and settled her gaze so this time we knew which she was referring to and that she wouldn't lower it until the question she asked was answered.  
"My name is Amanda," I said, going to the default answer I was trained to answer by and leaving it at that so no more questions were encouraged and the circumstance of my safety not decreased with each one.  
"Yeah I got that," Sarah answered, smirking so that we knew she knew the trick we'd practiced at and wasn't amused that it has been used on her. "I mean _who _are you? What's your place in all of this?"  
"Amanda Jaclyn Reid. Born August 7th, 1984," Cameron began, listing the details as she wrapped the bandage around the knee and ignoring my flinch as it touched on the ripped skin. "More commonly known by history as Amanda Connor. Wife of John Conner, mother to his children and future joint leader of the Resistance." The fire crackled in the silence that followed and I watched the shadows shudder over the dirt as it did, making it darker and light as it changed its mind and curled back into the can. There. It was said.  
"Connor? Amanda ... Connor?" Sarah tried out the words as I had to myself a hundred times and finding no more grip on them then I had even though it was supposed to be my name. Pain tightened on my knee and I cried out as Cameron pinned the edges of the bandage together and turned away with her work done to gather up the medicine and remaining inches of bandage.  
"Yes. Amanda Connor. Born August 7th ..., " Cameron began to repeat, not understanding the question and falling back into default mode that she sometimes did whenever she thought I forgot the words and following up with the three that I knew better then my own name and had grown more comfortable with the purpose of: Keep John safe.  
"No, I got that," Sarah quickly said, stopping her and turning her attention back towards me and taking me in with a different eyes then she had a moment ago and making me uncomfortable that she was looking at me at all. Though I guess technically she was my mother –in – law and if stereotype was to be believed it was expected of her.  
"Hi," I said quietly, interrupting her stare and waving sarcastically to lighten the mood and her narrowed eyes telling me what she thought of that.  
"I was sent back here to protect her and John," Cameron continued, cleaning up the bloody gauze and walking over to the can and letting them fall into the flames and crackle as they burned. "Sent from the year 2027 on orders from John himself."  
"If she exists then why has no one been sent to protect her before?" Sarah asked, tearing her gaze from me and looking up to where Cameron stood, her head turned and the light burning its way along her cheek and playing orange and yellow up the lines. "Why now?"  
"Her identity was kept hidden to protect her. No one knew who she was or what her name was before she took Connor," Cameron explained, ignoring that it was me that she was talking about and that I was in the room and could answer for myself. I had been told it a hundred times before – amongst everything else that had been said and drilled to remember it so I knew my purpose and knew that it was no longer mine to make. "There was a breach and Skynet discovered her identity and sent machines back to look for her and kill her before she and John met. I've been protecting her ever since."  
"How long?" Sarah asked, standing and coming around the can to stand next to her, half of her in shadow and the other half too bright to look at directly and making me drop my eyes to my knee and uneasily roll my jean back over it. Not like they were going to address their questions about me to me anyway.  
"73 days. I found Amanda after twelve. She was much easier to locate," They both turned to look at me and I ignored it to return the favor and continued to unroll my jean until it reached my ankle and cupped the bone between my hands.  
"How much do you know?" Sarah asked and after two seconds quiet I looked up to see her staring down at me, no sentiment in her eyes upon learning I was her future daughter in law and calculating how much of a burden I would be if I failed to protect myself.  
"Enough," I said, meeting her eyes and returning the cold stare of them. Everything. Skynet, the machines, the future, my part in it and how everything else was depended on that I played it and played it well. Seemingly a lot of pressure for a fifteen year old to take on but I had been drilled on it and I wasn't going to be considered a burden to that circumstance.  
"Your fiancé went to the police," Cameron said, interrupting the moment and Sarah losing her focus on me with the words and returning it to Cameron. "You should have changed your aliases."  
"Go to Hell," Sarah said between her teeth, stepping closer to Cameron and the threat empty of anything that could actually hurt her but steady all the same.  
"They'd have found you anyway. They always do," Cameron said, almost reassuringly as she stared back at her and not taking the step closer as a threat but simply a movement that people sometimes made. She turned to look at me, the turn and the firelight illuminating the tear in her shirt and the metal welded and pieced together underneath. "You should get some sleep." I swallowed and nodded, still tasting the metallic in my stomach but not turning away as I gathered my jacket and folded it more comfortably and into the substitute of a pillow before lying back onto it. There was no illusion. Just a reality others were too willing to ignore and the one that I had been promised to never forget.

Metal screeched against metal and I cringed as Cameron pulled the front bars off of the dusted trunk and turning to casually toss it to the side, either oblivious to the sound of it or not bothered that it had one. She turned back and popped the front to look inside and I leaned back against the center pole holding up the ceiling and running my fingers over the hardened cloth over my knee, faint blood stained through and almost making a pattern if I was morbid enough to focus on it long enough. Sarah stepped up to the driver seat door and pulled it open to where John sat behind the wheel and staring down at his hands that were presumably folded in front of me. Neither of them had talked to me yet and I couldn't be bothered enough to mind – not when most of my company for the last few months had been Cameron and it was almost as close as solitude when she spent her days silent but for her speeches of my fate and suggestions at random times that I either needed to sleep or eat. I exhaled deeply so my cheeks puffed and sagged lower against the post and staring down at my hands with their nails chipped and blood crusted underneath that I didn't have the time or patience to wash out. They'd get dirty again and I'd be back where I started trying again to make them clean and ignoring the futility of it like having clean hands could be symbolic and not be bleeding for a cause that up until three months ago I didn't know existed and now ultimately I would die for. Most people would find that unfair but I had reached the point where it almost hadn't fazed me anymore and it was just another set of words to repeat to myself day in and day out and that if I said them enough they'd stop sounding stupid and actually make sense. Skynet. Machines. The future. Amanda Connor. Keep John safe. Just words. No meaning just something else to help make it through the day. The front of the truck slammed down and I lifted my head as Cameron turned to look at me, that same tear covered up by the pink shirt that had once been mine but with blood now covering the elbows and hem.  
"You ready?" She asked, head turned quizzically and trying to guess whether I was alright or not. No.  
"Yes."

I tapped my feet against the concrete passing off as the gas station drive and shifted back against the bumper so I could sit on it more easily the metal of it making it a challenge. A man in a trucker's hat and faded jeans was staring at me from his own truck and grinned when I looked his way, lifting his cap as a "hello" that I didn't return and only looked away and back to my boots still restless on the ground. Probably I thought I was older then I was and that even if I wasn't it wouldn't bother him too much.  
"Chip?" John asked and I squinted up at him standing next to me and his opened bag of chips held out to me with his offer to take one and a hesitant smile crossed on his lips. I took one from the crinkled bag and started to chew on it, the saltiness of it biting at the cuts on my tongue but eating it nonetheless.  
"Can I sit?" He asked, looking around at the empty space between us and the gas bumps and seeing the spot next to me as the only option to ask to. I slid further to the right to accommodate him and he took it, carefully sitting on the edge of it and digging in his shoes enough to prevent him from falling off. I ate the rest of my chip and dusted the salt grains off of my fingers as he held out the bag to offer me another one and this time I took two.  
"My mom told me," He blurted out as I started on the chips I had just taken and tumbling the words out like he had wanted to say them so urgently that he hadn't quite figured out how to do so properly. I turned the tip of my boot back and forth in the cement and wearing down the fabric more than I did the ground.  
"Oh?" I asked, not sure what else to say and nothing decent coming to mind of what might substitute as at least comfortable. Not that there was any of those either.  
"Yeah," he said, looking down at the half empty bag and properly regretting that he had offered me some in the first place. I chewed my last one slowly, savouring it so I wouldn't have to ask for another but he offered me one anyway when I was finished and when he did I took three.  
"So I guess that's why you came up to me ... at school," he said, the obvious heart of the problem and the teenage boy hurt that a girl had paid attention to him but had only done so for an ulterior motive. I chewed on the chip to prolong the moment and the answer that we both know I'd say before I needed to say it.  
"Yeah," I ate another chip and leaned back and shifted more comfortably and turning the last one between my fingers and the salt coming off on my fingers. Kind of ironic if I spent the rest of my life fighting from machines with guns and that it was a heart attack that brought me down.  
"It's alright. I get it. Pretty girls don't come up to guys like me unless they're married in the future and one has to make the introductions," he laughed bitterly on the words and passed the chip bag back and forth between his hands and didn't offer me another one when I finished the one I had.  
"I don't think that's how it usually goes ...," I attempted, wiping the last of the salt on jeans and avoiding my knee as I did and wondering if I could take another chip before he noticed. He snorted sarcastically but held the bag to me again and this time I satisfied myself with two.  
"So ... Amanda. Is that your real name?" He asked, turning his head and his hair back in his eyes and hiding their colour so again it was a question of green or hazel.  
"Yes," I said simply, not sure where he was going to the question and unaware how to make it easier for him to get there. Startled that I didn't know he blinked and awkwardly turned to stare back out at the gas station.  
"Is that like your full name or do you have a nickname? What do your friends call you?" He wondered, watching his mom through the store window and her gaze turning every few minutes to meet his and making sure that he was still there. Probably didn't notice or care that I was also sitting beside.  
"I don't have any friends," I said more fact then answer and eating the last chip and crunching on it quietly so he didn't notice and offer me another one. He laughed shortly, looking down at his feet and offering me another anyway.  
"What's so funny?" I asked, more curious then hurt as I this time I took four.  
"Nothing just ...," he looked up and his hair this time fell away from his eyes and leaving them warm with the remains of his laugh. Hazel. Depending on the light. "I don't have any either." He laughed again, crumbling the empty bag in his hands and aiming it at the garbage can and missing so it unrolled and settled next to the bottom. I let what we both said sink in and let myself grin as well, the stupid honesty of it endearing and making me laugh at how tragically it made sense that we – the two loneliest people – were by some chance destined to end up together. The laugh started to hurt and I cough but continued anyway more likely than not delirious from not honestly doing it in so long and startled by how good it felt.  
"What's so funny?" Sarah asked, suddenly in front of us and her arms folded across her chest and her own look unamused and glancing between the two of us like we were guilty of something and waiting out on one of us to rat out the other. Probably wanting it to be him who was the one to throw me under the bus.  
"Nothing," John shrugged off, still laughing and standing to walk over to the chip bag caught on the corner of the can and standing up to throw it properly in the trash. "Nothing." Sarah turned to look at me with her eyebrows raised and suspicious and I popped my last chip in my mouth I crunched on it loudly to bother her as she seemed to understand that purpose and stepping back, unsure of what to make of me.  
"Let's go," Cameron said, next to the driver's seat door and hand ready on the handle. I stood up from where I was sitting and tried not to limp as I walked over to the passenger side, my knee seizing up from the awkward position I held it in and John waiting on my side and holding the door open for me so that I could more easily climb in.

The door bell rang through the house and Sarah stepped back from pressing it and tucking her fingers into the cuffs of her jacket as if this was what made her apprehensive even after what we'd been through in the days that I'd known her so far. A shape blurred through the rippled glass and the door opened to reveal a boy about eight or ten with headphones around his neck and touching them together at is collar. He froze when he saw us and nervously glanced over his shoulder at the room behind him.  
"Mom?" He asked, not looking at us again directly and watching as a woman entered beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders before turning to see us and freezing as well.  
"You," she said, the word rasped between her teeth and terrified and accusatory all at once. Me I was tempted to answer.  
"We need to talk about Miles, Tarissa," Sarah said, stepping in without an invitation and leaving the rest of us outside waiting for one ourselves.  
"Danny, go to your room," the woman –Tarissa – said to her son and rubbing her hand nervously back and forth over his shoulders. "Right now." He nodded and left, continuing to stare at her as he walked away and disappeared down the hall and Tarissa turning towards Sarah and her face suddenly lined angrily. "How are you come here."  
"I know what they told you but it didn't happen that way," Sarah said, half pleading and half firm, uneasy on her feet and shifting her weight back and forth between them.  
"Get the hell out of here," Tarissa demanded, moving her attention to the rest of us and over each one in turn. "Now!"  
"It didn't happen that way," Sarah said, no angry and forcing it from between her teeth. Tarissa ignored it and pointedly walked away from the door and into the room she entered from and leaving the door open as she did. Sarah quickly followed after her and I took the opportunity to walk in after, seeing it as good as any as an invitation to enter. They were in the kitchen and Sarah had Tarissa by the arm, holding her close so she wouldn't miss anything and her eyes narrowed dangerously.  
"I didn't kill Miles. Alright, I didn't do it," Sarah insisted, the arm that was holding Tarissa's shaking as she visibly swallowed and looked as if she were unsteady. "I would never. Miles was a hero."  
"Then why are you here," Tarissa asked, calmer now and her voice quieter as Sarah loosened her grip on her arm and allowed her to have it back.  
"We're back," Cameron interrupted and they both turned to remember we were there and the pupils of Cameron's eyes turning an artificial blue and fading as the point was made. Tarissa pulled away from us and her heels clicked on the tile as she clutched her head and looking more exhausted then scared.  
"You told me there'd be no more machines," she breathed, dropping her arms from her face and her shoulders sagging. Cameron swept her eyes over me and John – John's hands in his pockets and bulging in the jeans that despite fitting better still weren't his size – and wandered off and down the hall, her footsteps almost inaudible.  
"Look, it's happening again," Sarah said, the time for pleasantries over and following Tarissa into the living room where she had sat on the arm of a chair and stared at the glass top of the table and her reflected misshapen and staring back at her. "Everything we fought to stop. Miles' work at Cyberdyne is the only link we have. Is there anyone, anywhere who's shown an interest in his work? Anyone he could've told? Someone he forgot?"  
"There's nobody. It's all gone," Tarissa answered, voice on the edge of emotional and her eyes pleading that one or all of us were lying and just waiting for the punch line. I shifted uneasily from foot to foot and glanced back at the hall behind us to where Cameron was gone. I remembered that denial of it and seeing it in someone else still made me uncomfortable. "You destroyed it all. You and Miles destroyed ... you destroyed everything." Sarah swallowed hard and stepped back with the accusation, the anger I had seen in her the last few days whittled down and now somehow making her seem sadder then had she had never had it. Footsteps sharply echoed behind me and I quickly turned, stepping as I did and to the side so that I was behind John and almost on his back and Cameron quickly stepping into the room.  
"We have to go," she said, voice unnaturally calm despite the urgent words. "Now." She retreated back where she came and I turned to look past the angle of the wall to the window and not seeing anything in the dark driveway but something more ominous about it that I couldn't see it.  
"Help me," Sarah pleaded and I turned to look over my shoulder as she spoke to Tarissa who had tears in her eyes and her lips trembling on words she didn't want to say but wanted to say all the same. "Help my son."

The wood of the garage door splintered as the back of the SUV rammed into it and I jolted in my seat with the hit and gripped my fingers into my seat and the one ahead of me so I wouldn't crash onto the floor but the struggle there anyway. Metal cracked as the back end of it hit Cromartie and I could see his silhouette awkwardly roll and the gun at his hand roll with him. Tires squealed and painted the driveway in black lines as I turned back over my shoulder to see him standing up from where he crashed into the shrubbery and gun back in his hand. Gunfire popped and echoed in my ears and the back window shattered as I grabbed John by the shoulders and shoved him to the ground next to me and shielding him with both my body and the two seats behind us. Sarah cried out and blood splattered onto my face and over my lips as she struggled to right herself over the wheel, the sleeve of her shirt blossoming red and her fingers shaking on the steering wheel.  
"Mom!" John cried but I pinned him with my elbow beneath me and held him there so he couldn't move, the SUV turning wildly on a corner and nearly dislodging us into the wall. Keep John safe. Keep John safe. Cameron turned around in the front seat, face calm and a trigger in her hands that she pressed with a short beep and an explosion of sound and light cutting off my senses for a panicked moment as the Truck we'd driven here in exploded in flames and rusted metal that kicked against the wheels of the SUV and jolting us so my heart pounded and my stomach felt sick. Keep John safe. Keep John safe. Throw up when we stopped but keep John safe. Not hearing my thoughts he took my distraction and pushed out from under me and to the driver seat and pressing his hands over Sarah's shoulder as she gritted her teeth and grunted in pain between them.  
"Oh God," he was saying, blood dripping down from his hands where I could see and staining the cuffs of his shirt.  
The SUV spun into the parking lot and I – for the hopefully last time – hit my back against the seat as it did and feeling my knee cut open again despite the layers of bandages. We swerved and stopped and I rammed into the front seat and clutched the metal holding it in place and the edges running raw on my palms. I missed my days that weren't defined by the number of injures I suffered.  
"Bandages, rubbing alcohol," Sarah said, her teeth gritted by pain and in the mirror sweat slick on her forehead and blood staining John's hands.  
"You need a doctor," John insisted, pressing against the remains of the bandages that we had used and the white soaked through with red.  
"Go!" Sarah insisted, the edge lost on the pain but the order clear without it. "We'll find cover out back." John pulled away from holding her, his hands stained and shaking as I leaned over and pulled the door open for him and stepping out as he did, my leg giving in pain briefly before I managed to stand and slam the door shut behind me. John quickly jogged for the convenience store and I followed after him, Chinese words stenciled into the windows and filtering the lights through them. The fluorescent light inside made my eyes water and the man behind the desk looked up in boredom as he walked in but his eyes widening as he saw the blood on his hands and my knee.  
"We need to clean up," I said, wrapping my fingers around his wrist and forcing it down and to the side so at least one of them was hidden and less noticeable to the curious clerk.  
"We need to get bandages and rubbing alcohol," John insisted, not hearing me and desperately looking over the shelves that held everything from candy to condoms and no set system as to where which was which.  
"Cameron's with her. You need to clean up," I didn't wait for him to answer and forced him into step to the back past the clerk who had stood up to watch us go and trying to act as natural as possible when my head was still hurting from the erratic driving and the pain in my knee was still making me feel sick. A unisex bathroom symbol was stamped on a door to the back and I jiggled the handle as it open and leaving smears of blood on the curve of it before slamming the door shut behind me. John stumbled into the room and I switched on the light at the door which flickered and hummed as it barely came on and illuminating the two piece bathroom that was in desperate need of a wash.  
"We need ...," he tried to say, pushing past me to the door but I held him back, gripping him at the elbows and forcing him still so that he could look at me and feel him trembling.  
"She's with Cameron," I repeated, slower this time so he couldn't even lie and say he didn't hear me. "You can't go anywhere with blood on your hands or they're going to call the police. You need to wash up." His eyes swept back and forth over me before he licked his lips to wet them and stopped resisting against my hands. I limped over to the sink and barely glanced at myself in the pitted reflection before grabbing paper towel by the handful from the tin dispenser and wetting it with the frigid water. John was pacing behind me and trying not to touch anything with his hands, now all too aware that they were bloody.  
"Here," I said, reaching for him and starting to scrub with the cheap brown paper towel that they used in restaurants and convenience stores and little slivers of it curling and come off much easier then the blood was.  
"I got it," he protested quietly and separated half the stack so we both had some and scrubbing them into his palms as they stubbornly faded from red to pink. I watched him as he did, turning the damp papers between my hands and my knee trembling under the weight of him. His hair had fallen over his eyes and his hands had stop shaking but he seemed quiet and I could see it in the way he stooped over his work and looking like if he made himself any smaller he could disappear or wake up and all of this would be a dream.  
"You okay?" I asked, a stupid question but concern making me ask it all the same. He laughed bitterly, the sound fighting with the touch of warmth on his lips.  
"I'll live," he said, mirroring my words from the truck yesterday and making me laugh as well. It didn't come out as loud or painful as at the gas station but quieter and softer like if you curled up far enough in it you could fall asleep and be safe. That was a lie though. When you slept you let your guard down and that's when it was more likely that you would die.  
"How's your knee?" He nodded at it as he worked his palms now almost finally clean and tossing the peeling papers into the trash. I glanced down at it and saw the blood leaking through the bandages and the burn of it making my whole leg feeling like it was crumbling.  
"Hurts like Hell," I admitted and eased back onto the thankfully closed toilet seat and wincing as I stretched it out. He walked over and knelt in front of me despite the dirtied floor and turned my knee back and forth between his hands, gentle as he did so and his brow furrowed as he examined it.  
"May I?" He asked and lifting his eyes to mine. I nodded, not knowing what he was asking exactly and let him start to roll up my jean and carefully pull it over my knee where I had ripped through the fabric and left the wound more open to the elements. He undid the clip that Cameron had made and started to unravel it, pins and needles slipping under my skin as the pressure released and the last layer sticking with blood as I gritted my teeth and dug my nails into the bar they set up by the side of the toilet for those who needed help up. He sucked in his breath as the air hit it and the blood made it harder to see where the actual wound was.  
"Looks like you tore a couple of layers," he said, turning himself instead of my knee to check for sure and tenderly pressing his fingers along my calf at the muscle to see if they reacted. I nodded, teeth still gritted and wishing there was a way to stitch it up and get it over with but the cuts too far over the place to most likely make that easy.  
"Wait here," he said, pulling himself to his feet and to the door before I could say anything or even think to make him stop. Too late I opened my mouth as he left but the door already closed, shutting off what I was going to say and embarrassing if I said it to an empty room. I sighed and leaned against the toilet back and let myself relax for just a moment though I knew I should probably run after him and make sure he somehow didn't get shot between the bubblegum and magazines. I let my eyes crawl over the walls written with various crude messages against the sickly green and finally to the mirror opposite me and the reflection I was having trouble recognizing staring back at me. I didn't see a woman or a wife and mother or least of all someone that millions would follow and thousands would die for. I saw a child. I saw a girl who could maybe pass for a year older then she was but anymore then that a laughable stretch. I saw lanky hair and non descript eyes and lips that were more often than not gritted in pain or holding back tears then smiling or saying something confident and friendly. I saw clothes that didn't fit and never would and hands that had been bloody so often that the poor excuse for a girl had long grown tired of ever getting clean. I saw details but I didn't see a person and I waved at them to see if it helped but it didn't and I let my hand drop and my leg stretch out easier so I could see the blood in the mirror and thus convince myself to look away.

The door opened and I straightened as John hurried back in and closed it carefully behind me and pulled a roll of bandages and a brown bottle from under his jacket. He unwrapped the plastic around the bandages and knelt beside me, bottle on the ground and beside his other knee.  
"Here we go," he said, easing my leg up onto his lap and handing me the roll so that he would open up the bottle and remove the plastic underneath.  
"How'd you pay for these?" I asked, taking the hint that he probably hadn't but needing to say something nonetheless.  
"I didn't," he said with an embarrassed smirk and lifting my leg so that it was level with his chest and the cuts of my knee creasing together and making me suck in my breath. He smiled apologetically and with his other hand lifted up the bottle and held it close to my skin so that without saying it I knew what it was for and as a split second warning before he tipped it and the clear liquid poured on. My skin seemed to melt and burn and I bit my lip hard so I tasted blood and gripped the bar under my fingertips where I could feel it growing clammy from the sweat of my palms. Seeing my reaction he quickly lower the bottle and my leg but the pain was still there and it made the room seem to dim and grow smaller around me though it didn't seem the ideal place to suddenly pass out.  
"Sorry, sorry," he murmured, taking the bandages from my lap and unrolling them before pressing one end to the inside of my knee and starting to wrap it around and soaking through the blood and rubbing alcohol. I tipped my head back and stared at the flickering light above me and watched it until it blurred and lowered it again as the room pulsed and I worked on blinking it back to focus rather than the burning that taking my leg down layer by layer. He finished wrapping it around and tucked the end into the folds and pressed his hands to each side – avoiding the wound itself – so no bubbles popped under the cloth and that the pressure held.  
"You alright?" He asked as he finished, leaning back on his knees and eyes raised to mine in case I actually did pass out. I turned my leg to look at both sides, the effort worse off than Cameron's but more tender where as she had just cleaned and wrapped it because she had to and made it a duty instead of a favour.  
"I'll live," I said, wanting him to laugh at it which he obliged me to and the two of us quietly laughing at the bad joke in the dirtied bathroom in the flickered light with blood both ours and not staining both hands.

I raised my head from the back of the seat and squinted at the light too bright for my eyes and something flimsy but nonetheless warm falling off my shoulders. Movement moved from beside me and I looked over to see John sitting just outside the car and standing as I woke up, his plaid shirt gone and it being the thing that had fallen off of me when I moved. He smiled shyly as he saw I was awake and moved to the door and leaning on the window of it and top of it block half of his forehead.  
"Morning," he said softly, his voice quiet and out of place from where my head and knee ached and I could taste film on my tongue I'd grown used to from sleeping too little and in places not meant for sleeping.  
"Morning," I grunted, stiffly rising and picking up the shirt from it had fallen across the seat next to me and holding it back out to him. "Thanks." He stepped back to take it and draped it over his own shoulders again and tucking down the collar so that it didn't rise up and obscure his throat.  
"What time is it?" I asked, looking around and still having to squint at the light streaming in through the broken windows of the garage.  
"7:52," Sarah said from where I couldn't see her and I looked through the windshield to see her standing in front of the SUV, arms crossed and a blood stained bandage wrapped over her left shoulder. "How are you feeling?" It was less courtesy then wanting to know if I would drop dead without warning and I answered it as it had been asked.  
"Better then you look," I said, straightening myself and grunting as my legs started to wake up and the pins and needles returned under my skin. Sarah bit her lip at the insult but ignored it, shrugging on her jacket to fill the silence and John smirking despite himself.  
"You're awake," Cameron said, at John's side and her eyes curious though common sense reminded me she couldn't express that and it was probably just me just not yet fully awake.  
"Yeah," I answered, swinging my legs through the open door and embarrassed that they had all probably been waiting for me to wake up and that I had prolonged that longer then was necessary.  
"Good," she said, barely nodding her head to confirm that she thought so. "We need to go."  
"Where?" I asked, hoping that she meant breakfast but knowing better then to actually think so.  
"I'll show you," Cameron said quietly and barely smiled the look almost natural looking though again I knew better.

I slammed the car door shut behind me and followed as Cameron purposefully walked to the bank, arms solid at her sides and her strides too long for me to catch up and my attempts leaving me hobbling behind her.  
"So, do you have, like, an account here?" John asked, squinting up at the gold letters printed across the front and facade behind it too complicated to be belonging to a bank.  
"Safety deposit box," Cameron answered, not slowing her pace or waiting for me or anyone else to catch up.  
"When'd you open that?" Sarah asked, able to meet her pace but leaving me and John behind in our attempts – though in all honesty I think John stuck back behind so that I wouldn't feel left  
out.  
"1963," Cameron answered simply as if the thirty-six year gap was no big deal and easily overlooked. Though I guess when you were a machine from the future it probably was. She pulled open the door in front of her and we took turns holding it as we walked through, the bank loosely crowded with those waiting in line and a single security guard just inside the entrance with his back to us and his arms crossed. Cameron walked over and without warning slipped the gun out from the holster at his waist and kneed him hard in the back so that with a grunt he hit the ground and stayed where he landed.  
"Everybody on the floor," she called, gun held out threateningly and scanning it over the crowd as in twos and threes they realised what was happening and with screams knelt onto the ground and covered their heads. "Please." She stepped over where the guard still lay and to the front counter, arm still perfectly raised with the gun in her hand and the threat of it still poignant as the people still whimpered and crouched, not one of them wanting to volunteer "hero." A blond woman in her early twenties stood behind the bank desk and trembled as Cameron approached and aiming her gun to the middle of her chest so that she knew that she was now the one at risk.  
"Keys to the safety deposit box," she said calmly but clicking the trigger as the woman hesitated.

The keys in the ornate gate clicked as she unlocked them and stepped through after, high heels loud on the tiled floor and trembling as she stepped back to let us in. The walls were a wash of mahogany and gold, too formal for a bank in my opinion but despite my opinion staying standing.  
"Get inside," Cameron ordered, gun now lowered and turning to the woman with her hand outstretched. "Keys." I walked by them both and after John who stepped into the vault and the view of hundreds of safety deposit boxes carved into the walls and minimal space between them so that there was room to fit them all. Cameron turned at the doorway where the woman still stood outside and trembled where she stood her eyes wide and lips pursued as despite herself she was curious to what we'd do next.  
"Lock us in, and then get away from the door," Cameron ordered, meeting her eyes and the gun at her side but the weight of it still heavy. "I'll know if you don't." The woman nodded and stepped back behind the door as it started to swing close and the weight of it snapping shut into the locks and the glass insides reflecting us back where we stood. I glanced around at the boxes behind me and met John's eyes, the look of them asking what I was thinking of what we do next.  
"You said you had a safety deposit box?" Sarah asked, confused but more in control in voicing it then John and I were in thinking it. Cameron turned from the doorway, eyebrows raised that she had to repeat the question.  
"I do," she insisted and stepping back from the glass and around the corner to where the room stretched larger then I realized. I followed after her, my knee protesting and ignoring it as somewhere in the back of my mind I sarcastically wondered if this would be my one chance to develop claustrophobia. Nothing I could do about it if I suddenly did ... Cameron scanned along the walls – which for her was literally scanning – and stepped up to one that was as nondescript as the rest and easily punching her hand through the door so it popped out and clattered on the tile and sliding out a handful of keys that crackled in her hands.  
"Open these boxes," she said, tossing us each a handful and I caught mine uneasily in my hands and turning them over and seeing no differences between them except for the numbers printed on each handle. "Put everything you find on the table. Carefully." That was comforting. I glanced down at numbers as saw each one started with a three and navigated around the room until I found the wall each with threes on the front and sorting out where each one went. The doors of each were slick and polished and I allowed myself a moment to wonder what was in each one and what the people were like who did own them and what they did that allowed them to be able to afford them in the first place. And of course the thought that came next of whether or not they would make it to Judgment day – and whether or not what they did that allowed them these boxes was enough to see that they lived through it. I unlocked my first door and pulled out a complicated set of metal intertwined with splashes of red in between and rather than examine it every inch like I wanted to I carefully walked over to the middle table and set it on top before walking back to the others.

"Is that from the future?" John asked as Cameron opened the last of her boxes and held out a tiny glass cylinder with something moving inside and delicately walked back to the table with her eyes trained on it between her fingers and focused as if she weren't careful then it would go off. Which wouldn't surprise me. Probably kill me ... but wouldn't surprise me.  
"You can't bring anything through with you when you come," she said, answering and ignoring his question as she set the cylinder on the table and began to work at putting the pieces together with it being the one to slide into something that looked somewhat like a rusted stable gun. "Not weapons, not clothing. Nothing. You send someone back to build it." She lifted it to eye level and peered at it curiously, lost in whatever thought she was capable of having and turning a switch on the side so that the cylinder inside it lit up and started to glow.  
"What is it?" John asked, curious as it began to whir almost comfortably despite the radioactive glow.  
"Hope," Cameron said quietly, hushed at the word and twisting my stomach at how empty it sounded out loud. There was no hope. Just moments to look forward to before the bad ones came by and paled them in comparison. Sarah turned her head to look at it better and raised her eyes as she did something comforting about the fact that she was skeptical as I was. Distantly was the sound of glass shattering and I turned to look past the curved wall at the door and the sight of it not a comfort when I thought of what could easily bring it down.  
"Is that the police?" John asked, walking around the corner and peering at the door which might be giving him more comfort then it was me, his keys still in his hand and dangling at his side.  
"No," Cameron confirmed, bowed over the table and putting the pieces on it together. "Get away from the door."  
"Why?' John asked, confused as a heavy thud hit it and shattered the glass inside it, shaking the room and causing my heart rate to spike and the once large room suddenly become close and making it feel like I couldn't breathe.  
"That's why," Cameron said calmly as John stumbled back from where he stood and pressed himself against the wall, breathing hard and resisting the urge to look around again. I swallowed hard and choked on it as I walked around to the other side of the table and as habit had taught looking for exits but the only one available the one with the broken glass and machine on the other side pounding to get in. Cracks and more thuds echoed on the other side and the room shuddered with each one and I wish I knew how the pieces on the table worked so I could keep my hands busy but nothing to do but wait and watch as Cameron continued as if not fazed by our imminent death.  
"That better be what I think it is," Sarah said, nodding at the gun like device now finished in Cameron's hands and the radioactive glow still whirring somewhere in the middle.  
"One of our engineers," Cameron said, stepping closer before tossing it into Sarah's hands where she caught it and turning back to the table. "Took him eight years to scavenge the parts. When the isotope solution turns red, then fire."  
"Isotope?" Sarah repeated as the whirring got louder and I could feel it echoing inside my head and interrupted by the cracks and thuds outside so I could feel my heart rate beginning to climb and slowly but surely driving me insane. "Is this nuclear?"  
"No, not really," Cameron shrugged as she turned back to the boxes and I slid down the wall to the floor and dropped my head between my legs and tried to breathe but all I could taste was that same metallic and the promise more than a threat that I was about to be sick.  
"I still don't see why you locked us in here," John said, asking the question of the moment and no less panicked then I was though at the moment handling it better. "We didn't have to get trapped like rats."  
"We're not trapped," Cameron insisted, another shudder rocking the room and my breathing coming in heavy so I was suffocating and no one else seemed to notice.  
"What is that?" Sarah asked and I lifted my head to see a larger set of doors on the wall opening and various panels and switches turned on in each one and rolling out on the base of the boxes and clicking as they fully opened.  
"The engineer got a job building the vault so we'd always have a way back home," Cameron explained, white letters scrawling across the blue background of one of the screens and hopefully saying something helpful. She clicked several keys on the board and I slowly pressed myself back up the wall to stand and the ground unsteady beneath my feet as the room gave another shudder.  
"What have you done?" Sarah demanded, turning back from the door and the device still clutched in her hands and the isotope whirring faster.  
"You want to find Skynet?" Cameron asked, facing her and steady as the room trembled almost continuously now and her face determined as she stared Sarah down. "You want to stop Skynet? This is the way."  
"You don't know who builds it," Sarah yelled over the noise and I walked over to where John stood and standing at his side as he glanced over at me and silently asking if I was okay. I nodded and he tried to smile but another violent shake cut the attempt short.  
"No, but we know where and we know when," Cameron continued, the screen behind her counting up numbers and flashing dates in white. "We can kill it before it's born. You can stop running. Stay in one place. Fight." Another crash sounded outside the door and I swallowed the taste I'd grown almost comfortable with on my tongue and stood straighter, my heart still pounding but thoughts settling as I heard her words repeating themselves in my head in place of the old ones I'd memorized. Keep John safe. Fight. Survive. Win. My feet were shaking but my hands were steady and the screen beeped as the date "2007" flashed and remained on the screen with the bright red word beside it: enabled. 2007. Eight years from now. Four years before judgement day. Another crash and bullets suddenly ricocheted against the walls and in habit I pinned John against the wall and stood protectively in front of him, the lights shorting out so everything glowed copper before the emergency lights kicked on and bathed everything in blue. Thuds hit the door rhythmically and I eased back from where I was still blocking John and he fell to the floor and crawled over to where Sarah knelt, device still whirring between her hands.  
"Mom, we've gotta go now!" He called to her as her eyes flickered between him and the door and adjusting the weapon carefully in her hands. "Mom!" The sound of metal ripping from metal screeched through my ears and I cringed at the sound but otherwise calm as someone usually was before either dying or taking that final attempt at survival.  
"Do it!" Sarah yelled, the cylinder burning red and Cameron turned to the screen and pressed something that pulsed for a second before lighting crackled from the ceiling and crawled up and down the metal walls with slivers of light reaching out as if to touch us. She marched pointedly towards the center of it and I took a breath a followed, the lines of lightning sharply blue and following in front and behind me as Cromartie stepped through the peeled remains of the door looking worse for wear, metal visible beneath his synthetic skin. No illusion there. John trembled as he ran up beside me and Sarah on my other side as she set off the weapon and a thick bolt went off from the end and hit Cromartie in the chest where he fell into pieces and the light still eerily flickering over them. The lightning started to grow closer together and get brighter as we stood there, my heart pounding in my chest again but more from adrenaline from fear as something touched my hand and I looked down to see John's next to mine and reached closer to grip his fingers in mine and everything burst in a wash of brilliant white light.

Cold. It was cold. A breeze ran over my bare skin and I shivered as I opened my eyes to see the burned pavement underneath me and the flickers of light still weakly clinging to it and then my bare arm on top of that. Bare. Arms, shoulders, chest, legs, feet bare. Naked. I was naked. I looked over my shoulder and squinted at a set of head lights staring me in the face and blinked around the brightness of it to shape the size of a small car and those inside still indistinct. Car. People. Good all good thoughts. I rolled my head back to look up at the sky and the pitch black of it staring back at me with tiny stars barely visible and winking back at me, friendly but cold. John lifted his head from beside me and glanced around, pieces falling into place slower for him and his arms folded over his chest as if aware that he was naked and more self conscious of it then I was. I sat up and swayed as I did so, legs folded together for some modesty and the bandages of my knee gone and the skin underneath it clean as before I cut it. How ...? Horns honked more insistently and Cameron and Sarah both turned from where they lay, naked as John and I were but both of them less concerned of it as he was. Cameron slowly stood and I followed to stand next to her, another breeze cold and pressed along my skin as I shivered and ran my hand up my arm. The people in the car moved as Cameron stared at them and John and Sarah cautiously stood on either side, hundreds of cars now lined up behind the one in front of us and headlights bright and disconcerting from each one. Without warning Cameron spun and grabbed me by the hand and pulled me off through the cars and to the grassy side of the road. John ran up behind me, shaking and arms folded over his chest as I caught him sneaking glances and turning away with each one before following it up with another. The grass was dry under my feet and Cameron continued to drag me through it and down a shallow slope, her grip firm and almost gentle on mine and unnatural that metal and not bone was underneath. The grass turned to gravel and we ran down through a construction site with a shadows stretched from machinery to machinery and an electronic sign propped up on the side and the message: 09-03-07 to 09-24-07 bright on the screen. I slid to a stop in front of the bulldozer and Cameron finally let go of my hand as I sank into the shadows next to her, John and Sarah catching up and resting beside us.  
"Where are we?" Sarah asked, glancing around the site as if looking for clues.  
"Same where," Cameron answered, a small smile on her lips and gesturing to the flashing sign. "Different when." I turned back to look at the sign and unscrambling the numbers the letters to sometime in September, 2007. 2007. I let it sink in for a moment – a split second we did have of the eight years we'd skipped over – and followed my attention after Cameron as she continued running and fading in and out of the shadows. She stopped running and walking firmly into the middle of the road where a car skidded to a stop in front of her and the brightness of their headlights brightening everything around her but making her more difficult to see. Four men stepped out of the sides of the car and slammed the doors shut behind them, obviously drunk and impressed by the naked woman they sauntered over to her with catcalls cut short when she kneed the first one in the stomach and continued to attack the others with surgical blows as they went down easily and their groans of pain slurred by the alcohol.

I pulled on my borrowed shirt and let it drop to his full length ending around my knees, the layers thick and smelling heavily of alcohol but warm all the same.  
"So this is where it all starts?" John asked, walking over to where we still stood by the bulldozer but this time more modestly dressed. "This is where Skynet begins?"  
"Somewhere in there," Cameron answered, rolling up the sleeves of her baggy shirt and the edges of it flapping slightly in the chilled breeze.  
"And nobody knows we're here?" John wondered, asking like it was too good to be true and glancing around the shadowed yard as if expecting someone – or something – to jump out from somewhere and too practiced to lower his guard on that expectation. I folded my arms over my chest and looked out past the fence around the opposite end of the yard and the tall buildings and lights populating the other side.  
"You're safe," Cameron said and I turned back my attention to see her standing close to John as if to assure him and only him before walking around to where I stood and holding out her arm to where she had poorly tried to roll up the sleeve and only managed to bulge and overlap at the elbow. I took the hint and started to unroll it again before more carefully folding up the sides and buttoning where the cuff was still visible and making sure it stayed in place. Impressed she held out her other arm for me to do the same.  
"No one is ever safe," Sarah and John said at the same time and I looked over to where he stood, hair tucked back behind his ears and his face half in shadow from the disorganized light. His eyes met mine and he faintly smiled, lines deepening in his face but the illusion there and in the shadow making him look older this time and more aware then when I had met him four days ago. I returned the smile nonetheless and his brightened as I did and looking almost hopeful in a way that I knew better then I allowed myself to believe.


	2. Gnothi Seauton

Disclaimer: For those who keep commenting on the dislike of the lack of Cameron / John pairing I suggest you search for that couple instead of complaining on mine. The story is still young and you have no idea what's going to happen so it may be better for us all if you spend your time on something you will enjoy instead of getting my hopes up with reviewer emails. For those who want to read the story and enjoy it or give me constructive criticism (on something besides the pairing) I welcome you. Enjoy.

I carefully stepped over the floorboards, each one creaking despite my efforts and through the narrow hall with the faded dawn light casting shadows over the peeling wallpaper. The knock continued insistently and I moved closer to the wall so I could look past it to the window by the door and see who it was without hopefully being seen myself. Something soft creased under my feet and I barely acknowledged it as my shirt from last night and the events that led to it being caught on the vent. The knock came again before the splintering sound of wood and my heart caught in my chest as I fell back into the shadows, hands flat against the wall and hoping it was dark enough that I wouldn't be seen. I glanced at the edge of the table through the entryway where David kept his gun and calculating how many steps I could make to it before they saw me and pulling the trigger before they reacted. Too many. Footsteps sounding on the floor, quieter than mine were but loud enough that I could still hear though it might have been because I was tensed for them. Through the doorway, stopping, to the table and then the kitchen. Looking for something. I glanced at the door to the bedroom, half open from where I had left moments before and no movement to suggest that the noise had woken David. That or he had heard and escaped through the bathroom window to leave me as consolation. I couldn't fault him too much for it though. If I had been smart enough to shoot first ask question later I probably would have been done the same. The footsteps faded and crackled on tile and I dared to peek around the corner to see a woman with her back to me stepping into the kitchen and standing in front of the fridge with her attention fixated on it. I glanced at the table and recalculated how quickly I could get to it before she turned around or heard me. Less than a minute ago but that was even assuming that he had been smart enough to leave it loaded or at least bullets close by. Another step. I bit my lip against a silent fuck and resisted the urge to bang my head back against the wall in frustration. I should have just crawled out the window when I had the chance. Another morning, another knock on the door and another boyfriend who borrowed money from the wrong person and saw fit to have it collected at six in the morning. But this time I was stupid and I would most likely die for it or at the least suffer a blow to the head which I'd rather do without. Another look around the corner, another calculation of the steps and I moved but she moved faster. Half way to the table and the half opened drawer with the gun visible inside and she was in front of me blocking it. She towered over me with a disinterested look on her face and something unnatural about the way the light hit her skin and making it look unrealistic and manufactured. I stumbled back and grabbed for the lamp I knew was behind me and not plugged in – a backup plan David once told me during Orientation – and aimed it at her head but her hand reached out and grabbed me by the wrist and twisted. My jaw tightened as pain sunk into my muscles and the lamp dropped from my grip and shattered on the carpet, my fingers clenched and upwards as she continued to hold me with inhuman strength. My arm started to go numb and I heaved uneasy breaths between my teeth as she stared at me, head cocked and curious like she were scanning me and unsure of the results.  
"Are you Amanda Reid?" She asked her voice stoic and out of place considering the fact that she was minutes away from breaking my arm. I didn't answer, teeth still grinding and too far away from anything else I could lift to throw at her as a plan C. Her head turned to her other shoulder, eyes still searching and calm. "Are you Amanda Reid?"  
"Yes," I choked it out between my teeth, veins sticking out from my arms and the faint line of muscle that I apparently had to be seconds from death to display. Her grip released and I fell back against the couch, cradling my arm to my chest and feeling like it was weighted down with wet sand and able to fall apart as easily.  
"You're Amanda Reid?" She repeated, head still cocked to the side and voice calm as if this was an everyday occurrence and she already knew the protocol that followed.  
"That's what I said," I answered angrily, still clutching my arm and stepping back against the wall which left me the option of bolting past her to the still open door or back through the hallway to the bedroom where the window never properly shut and it was a short drop to the grass. Neither seemed like viable options though and neither was the threat to take them as she continued to stare at me, more curious then hostile. Unsettled I stared back at her as her eyes slowly travelled over me and taking me in with no interest or lack of it to tell me what she had determined from the look.  
"My name is Cameron," she spoke, finally meeting my eyes and a calm emptiness behind her own. "I am from the future and I have been sent her to protect you, Amanda Connor." The fuck ... ****

I slowly opened my eyes, roused from memories in the form of dreams and the opposite wall staring back at me to remind me that it was just that. Light was hazy through the window and I rolled onto my back to stare at the ceiling and the crack that divided it into a corner and the rest of the room. Footsteps and muffled voices echoed downstairs and I let the last few days – months – sink in and reminding myself of them in greater detail. Machines. Skynet. Nuclear War. The Future. John Connor. Amanda Connor. Me. Seemed simple enough. Easy when you could think it in sentence fragments and avoid saying it aloud whenever necessary. Not easy. But easier. I let out my breath slowly and reminded myself of everything one last time before pushing myself up and off the bed.

The floorboards creaked under my feet as I walked and announcing myself before they saw me so John and Sarah were already looking up when I stepped in. Decorative pieces of metal were scattered across the table and in John's hands and he grinned when he saw me so it looked like he had been holding it in and it now made him breathless. Sarah was less welcoming.  
"You're up," she observed, setting the cardboard box in her hands to the chair and filling the last empty one. I ignored the bite of the action and the question, instead walking around her to move it myself and twirling the box between my fingers as I sat.  
"How'd you sleep?" John wondered, leaning his elbows onto the table and the metal pieces and tools crunching as he put weight onto them. He grimaced as they did but didn't move them, dedicated to the action.

"It was good," I answered, smiling kindly enough at him that he blushed and looked away. Footsteps sounded quieter but more distinct on the floor and I glanced up as Cameron walked, shoulders and back straight with the strap of her pink bra sticking out and something unnaturally human about it that she hadn't tucked it back in.  
"New ID's today?" She asked, head tilted as she took each of us in and addressing it to each of us individually. "It's been three days."  
"You noticed," I said dryly, still turning the box and the cardboard burning under my finger tips. John snorted and I marked it a small victory that he found it funny.  
"It's not just ID's," Sarah said through her teeth, picking up on the conversation they had been having earlier that I had missed and filling in the interruptions. "It's not just a name. It's a legend. A life. A whole new you." She looked over at me as she said it, addressing her message to us both but the warning in it towards me alone. _Screw up and I'll kill you.  
_"I want my new name," John cut in and Sarah returned her attention to him to find him suddenly serious and tightening his fingers to the table. "I want the whole new me. I'm ready. We both are." He included me in the glance and Sarah didn't turn to follow it, a muscle tightening in her jaw as the only sign that she knew it was me that he was talking about. "Can't you track down Enrique?"  
"All right, I'll track down Enrique," Sarah conceded, looking over to Cameron who was splitting her gaze between the three of us and uncertain which one she should focus on. "Old friend. Ten years ago he was the best fake paper guy around." She was explaining it to her and whatever reason leaving me out of the explanation as if I wasn't privy to hearing it as well. I swallowed the slight and lowered the box to my feet so I could rest them on it.  
"John sent back better ones," Cameron answered stiffly and with the announcement promptly turning and stepping out of the room.

I re-crossed my legs over each other and ran my finger over the inside of the jar lid and sucking on it to catch the peanut butter I had collected there and the taste instantly drying out my tongue. I turned the jar over in my hands and examined the cartoon that looked more cheerful then food should be allowed to be. I couldn't remember the last time I had some though. David had been allergic and in the months after I hadn't considered the luxury of it. Might as well enjoy it now though there probably wouldn't be any more after Judgement Day.  
"You should probably use a spoon." I looked up as John walked in and he dug his hands into his pockets and shyly looked over at me as if embarrassed by suggesting it. "More sanitary." He grinned to himself as he shuffled over somewhat, not looking me in the eye and instead glancing around the room for presumably better conversation topics then peanut butter sanitation.

"Probably," I allowed, not making the move to get one and watching him – curious – and trying to piece together the foundation of who he was now to who he would be now four years in the future. You'd think after three days together in the same house I would have found something to scratch the surface with but all I saw was a boy with a weight on his shoulders that he was scrambling to dig himself out from under. It wasn't comforting but it also wasn't to shy away from either and I still had my part. I ran my finger along the rim of the jar again and held it out to him as a peace offering that coupled with what we knew about our future and the empty house fell onto sensual. He swallowed hard and stared at it, grip tightening and retightening in his pockets and suddenly feeling bad for making him uncomfortable I sampled it myself and pretended that I hadn't offered.  
"So what else is there to eat?" He asked, hand to his hair and sweeping it back as he looked around the decrepit kitchen and seeing no other option of what to say and picking the safest choice.  
"I think there's some turkey in the fridge," I shrugged, naming the first animal that came to mind. He visibly brightened.  
"Really?" He asked, suddenly eager and turning to open the fridge and glancing around the half bare shelves. "Because I make the best turkey sandwiches. You want one?" He looked over his shoulder at me, hair in his eyes and an endearing smile of someone desperate to please. I let myself grin and nodded and he turned back to the fridge to dig through the contents and pulling them out one at a time to set on the table next to me: Mayonnaise, cheese, bread and the remains of the tomato that Cameron very well have simply cut into the middle of to see what was inside. He shuffled through what remained and his brow creased as he stepped back empty handed.  
"I don't see any turkey," he frowned, excitement fading and looking like a child who hadn't gotten what he wanted and was not pleased with an alternative.  
"Maybe we ran out," I offered, placating him. He exhaled deeply and let the door shut behind him as he reached over for the phone on the counter and dialed a number before holding it to his ear and waiting. He paced around the table in impatience before leaning against the opposing counter and running his fingers over the metal corners of the sink.  
"Are you done yelling at her yet?" He wondered and I returned to my peanut butter as his attention refocused and I briefly had no need to hold it. I ran my fingers over the curves of the jar and memorizing the ingredients on the back as they became longer and more difficult to pronounce.  
"Mom, I already looked there's no ...," John walked back over to the fridge and shuffled through it before pausing and pulling out the half empty bag of turkey that had evaded him. He turned to look at me again and raised it as his prize and looking sheepish. "Oh, yeah, there it is. Thanks." I grinned at him in congratulations and he tossed it among the other ingredients and stood to the right of them so that my knee almost touched his hip. "Yeah, we know what no ID means." He hung up and tossed the phone back to the table and rolled his eyes at me as if to show off with the exasperated _mother's _expression. I nodded, allowing him it as he sorted out the ingredients and tapped his finger twice on the end pieces of bread and thinking of what else he needed before crossing back over to the sink and pulling a knife and a spoon from drying rack. He returned and held the spoon out to me as if in peace offering and I grinned before I could help myself and took it.

I ran the crust of my sandwich over the plate once more and catching what remained of the mayonnaise and mustard that John had allowed to be included as a mild sort of experiment. I wiped my lips with the back of my hand as I chewed it and watched our shadows of the couch, aware that he was watching me.  
"I told you they were good, right?" He asked, grinning at his perceived success and waiting for my approval of it. I reached for my glass of milk and took a sip, leaving him in suspense as I swallowed.  
"I believe your exact words were 'the best'." I corrected him and setting the glass back to the table where it clunked on the wood and left a visible ring. He laughed and looked back to his own plate, balanced on his knee.  
"And is it?" He was looking at me through his strands of hair again and giving him the advantage of seeing his expression but robbing me of the chance to see his. It was unsettling not being able to see it. Not being able to read what he was thinking and having to use my own instincts to guess.  
"I'm not sure. Your faith in it fluctuates," I teased and he laughed, turning back to his plate and making me smile both from the sound and that I had guessed correctly.  
"So, what about you? Do you cook?" He wondered, leaning back on the couch and the springs of it creaking in the weight. I set my plate back on the table next to the glass and ran my hands over my knees in the suggestion that I was brushing off crumbs but really thinking of a safe answer.  
"Considering that I find eating peanut butter straight from the jar proper etiquette ... I'd say no," I offered instead and his eyebrows creased in recognition that it wasn't a straight answer but knowing enough of me in the past week to suggest I wouldn't give a proper one. He leaned forward to put his own plate next to mine and I watched his back curve and straighten with it and briefly wondered if he would shiver if I ran my finger down his spine. The door creaked open behind us and I turned to the light coming through it and Cameron walking after, scratch marks and blood detailing her face and a slight limp in her step as she walked past us and into the other room. Sarah stood standing in the door and slowly looking up to both of us, her shoulders sagged, face solemn and for the first time since I had known her – afraid.

"Turn for me," I advised, fingers on Cameron's chin and holding it steady as she obediently turned and I dropped my touch to the compact of makeup in my lap and the evidence of it poorly executed on her cheeks. I ran the brush through the powder before dotting along her chin where thin scratch marks were barely visible and fading under my half skilled work. It was different from when I was eight and the makeup came in plastic tins for a dollar and did nothing but make your lips too red and your eyes too dark. But I thought it made me pretty and then I thought it mattered.  
"So, what I'm getting is these things, they're here," Sarah spoke, breaking the silence as if picking up a conversation we never started. "All over, I guess. And they, some of them all of them are programmed with specific missions."  
"The one at the safe house was sent there for those fighters," Cameron answered, tilting her head somewhat and showing me where I had missed the marks down her neck. "Skynet doesn't know you're here. There's no directive to hunt you. Either of you." Without turning her head she glanced down at me so that I knew it was me who she addressed.  
"So if I was to walk right by one ...," John asked, working on something behind us and hope cracking under his words.  
"They'll walk right by you," Cameron now turned her glance to him, head still steady and no pulse betrayed in her neck when my fingers brushed it. I swallowed down the thought of how strange it was and closed the makeup in my lap. Some things you never got used to – no matter how many times you repeated it alone to yourself. "They don't know what you look like. They're still learning who Amanda is." She took the makeup back from my hands and opened it so she could use the mirror and turning it back and forth to examine my work.  
"That's really awesome," John breathed and took the tools case he was using back over to the counter and sorting the pieces inside.  
"And what if he found out who he was? Who they are?" Sarah wondered, stepping to the center to join him and including me like an unwanted afterthought. "Would they all know what to do then?"  
"They do," Cameron nodded, closing the compact and handing it back to me, silently approving of my work.  
"Awesome," Sarah answered with a sarcastic smile. I stood up from my seat and brushed off my lap in more habit then need and crossing to the counter where she and John stood and staring at one another with the trained glances of two people who knew each other well enough to know the others thoughts without saying them.  
"So school's registration is tomorrow at 3:00," John said, breaking the eye contact and sorting the pieces again back into the case. "Do you think we can have all this sorted out by then?" He raised his eyes again to hers and his fingers lingered on the lid to wait on either if he would continue sorting or close it in subdued anger.  
"Can't you just be happy being yourself a little while longer?" Sarah pleaded and John's shoulders dropped in premature defeat as he stared down at the tiny pieces and knowing their name and purpose better than I did. "Just sit still? It's not so bad being a Connor." She looked over at me as she said it, half a warning and half a welcome though I couldn't tell if either were intentional. I returned her gaze until she was the one who dropped it.  
"That's easy for you to say," John bitterly replied, turning something round and metal between his fingers.  
"Is it?" Sarah asked and let the words sink in before turning away from the both of us and the kitchen and her footsteps echoing and then fading in the hall. I looked over at John who was watching me first and slowly closed the lid of the case so it clicked into place. Footsteps again followed it and Sarah stalked back in, steps heavy on the tile.  
"You all put back together tin man?" She asked Cameron and returning to the table to slid the gun off it and into the waistband of her jeans.  
"Tin man?" Cameron asked, head tilted in the gesture she had learned to associate with a question.  
"You ready to go?" Sarah translated, surprisingly patient that she had to.  
"Thank you for explaining," Cameron acknowledged and handed the towel she was holding to me and expecting me to have a use for it before turning and her light step following her out of the room.  
"You two stay here," Sarah addressed to both of us, John now by the cabinet and leaning back against the oven. "Still like a statue."  
"Enrique?" John asked, ignoring her order.  
"Statue," she repeated through her teeth.  
"Yeah, we've been statues for the last three days," John reminded her and not pleased that he had to do so.  
"We'll be back," she said, allowing herself a tender moment to touch his check before looking to me. There was caution to her eyes which was less then affection but more than hate and I allowed it but not the mourning that came with it.

I ran my fingers through the last of the dust stained boxes and turning over the hard covers of the books inside with the titles sunk into the cardboard so I couldn't read them. I peeled open the pages of the one I held and glanced over the words and tried to get a feel of them without committing to it entirely. I set the one I was holding down before picking up another and another, all of them packed close together and sticking when I tried to pick them apart. Much use they would do me but there was something comforting about them anyway. Having them there and being able to read them if I wanted to. Another thing to enjoy when I still had the chance. I rolled back on my ankles to sit on the dust soaked carpet and opened the peeling pages of the one I held.  
"Amanda," John's voice called from the other room and I slammed the book shut so the air danced with dust and despite the pretty image I coughed and choked on it. I tossed the book none too carefully back into the box and stood as John walked in and would only get to guess at what I was doing.  
"I'm going out you coming?" He was holding his jacket as if he had made the decision already and was waiting only on my approval as a formality.  
"Out? Out where?" I asked as Sarah's order replayed itself for me and the warning behind it as if I had forgotten and needed to be reminded.  
"Anywhere," He shrugged, gesturing to the door down the hall from us and whatever he so badly wanted to see through it. I followed his glance and back before raising my eyebrows at him at the suggestion and hoping it was enough to dissuade him from the idea. It didn't.  
"I can't sit still any longer," he explained without me asking, fingers readjusting their hold on the jacket with barely concealed anticipation. "I need fresh air and people and ... I don't know something. Are you coming?" He watched me, waiting for me to answer and every possible scenario that could go wrong illustrating itself for me in my thoughts. A machine could recognize us, we could be stopped for a petty crime, John could be hit by a car and all of it tying back to if Sarah found out and what she would do if she did. But he was excited and whatever weakness inside me that I couldn't bury didn't want to be the one to do it for him. I didn't like it but it was there and it didn't go away like I wanted.  
"Fine," I conceded and his face cracked into a grin.

I balanced between not being sure if I should hold his hand as a romantic gesture or holding it so he didn't get more than a few feet out of my sight. There was people everywhere and each one I saw there was some glimpse – imagined or not – of a mechanical step or naturally reflected skin that made me see Machine's everywhere and that I was alone in them as his only defense. John didn't seem to notice though and only seemed happy to be out in the sun and people again and was looking everywhere at once to talk it all in. He looked like a boy when he did that. Wanting to see everything and not enough time to see it all in. Would he always be like that? Unable to sit still? Was it what made him a great leader or what kept him rooted in my eyes as a child? I didn't know the answer to that and a part of me didn't want to.  
"How about here?" He asked and I worked my way out of my own thoughts to take in the granite building stretched out before us and the words "South Valley Mall" stenciled in gold on the front.  
"A mall?" I asked in disbelief as people milled in and out of it and not noticing that we had stopped to stare at it. "First date with a girl and you take her to a mall?" He glanced over at me in surprise and I almost missed the blush to his cheeks by taking in a group of men who passed who paid me less attention then I allowed them.  
"Cut me some slack I'm out of practice," he teased and I rolled my eyes to continue the lightness of the moment before he tentatively reached for my hand and I allowed his fingers through my own.

One of the computer screens had blue lines crossing and blending together over it and I took a moment to stare at it before moving in to take the dozens of others that lined the tables and walls with music I didn't recognize playing over the speakers. John's fingers were still through mine and occasionally I felt his thumb caress the back of my palm and it grounded me before something else caught my attention and I was again distracted. Everything had aged ten years and I couldn't seem to fit the pieces in between them as to how they got there and it unsettled me. Surrounded by technology and I had no idea how it got there or how in four years it would turn back and declare war. It made the room seem small and like I suddenly couldn't breathe.  
"Here," John interrupted and squeezed my hand as he stopped next to one of the computers and dropped my hand all together. He started typing into the keys and I leaned against the edge as he brought up a chess game before closing it and scrolling the house across the screen. He clicked on one of the icons before typing "John Connor" into the search engine and hitting enter. It loaded faster than I expected and a line of articles followed underneath it with the top one that he clicked and the words "Fugitives die in Bank Heist" came across the screen. I leaned forward over the keys and stared at the picture of the four of us, Cameron in front with a gun in hand and the three of us behind her and waiting to see what she would do next. My eyes weren't on where the camera had been shot and I was instead staring off to the side somewhere looking like a whole different person then I now or maybe seemed that way because I was looking at myself with the words "murderer" and "fugitive" printed to the side. He scrolled down before I could finish reading and the page changed before I could ask him to go back up. It was a middle aged man with a EMT uniform and a grin on his face under the words "Charlie Dixon" and beside an article I was only half interested in enough to notice.  
"Who's Charlie Dixon?" A voice asked before I could and we both looked up to see a young woman standing on the other side on the screen and a name tag pinned to her shirt. "You shouldn't surf with the demo." She gestured behind us and I glanced over my shoulder to see the picture now on a bigger screen so that anyone who bothered to look could read his name. "People get in your business. " John quickly turned back and exited out of the page with a frantic movement to his fingers.  
"Clear your history too," she suggested, walking around the table and making me tense that she was so close to him.  
"My history?" John asked, half panicked and the words not coming out right.  
"Your history. What you've been looking at," she smiled, leaning over him and to take control of the keyboard. "Snoopy people, dude. Snoopy people all over. Got a special on this." She nodded back to the screen and her charm now in her eyes equally sale.  
"No, maybe later. Thanks," John reached for my hand again and pulled me away from her and out of the store. He finally stopped by a potted plant next to a water mountain and leaned over his knees like he couldn't breathe and I cautiously put my hands to his back but unsure how it could have been helpful. He straightened though before I could properly do so.  
"I have to do something and I need to do it alone," he said, cutting right to the chase and hopefully whatever argument I might have against it. I scoffed.  
"That's all good and well John but it's too dangerous for you to be out alone," I pointed out, attention for a moment distracted by a woman passing and taking her own moment to stare at us.  
"I'm not a child," he said through his teeth and I had to resist the urge to scoff at that as well. Only when you don't get what you want and I have to placate you.  
"No you're just the savior of mankind," It came out harsher then I intended and his eyes hardened as he looked at me and maybe for once seeing me as a person instead of a girl there to hold a gun and flaunt his ego.  
"And as that savior I'm ordering you to let me do this – alone," he leaned forward as he said it so our noses nearly touched and there was a threat to his tone. I held my ground and stared back at him, biting back words it wouldn't go over well if I said and the confidence that if I really wanted to I could have him pinned and to the ground within three steps.  
"Fine," I answered surprised that I had said it but no desire to go back on it. Let him be a child and do what he wanted when so much rested on his shoulders. What did I care? I did care but the why was still unanswered. He blinked, surprised as I was that I had backed down and before I could rethink it turning and running back through the hallway and disappearing through the crowd of people.

I kicked at a piece of cement that had chipped itself out of the curb and watched it roll unevenly over the cracks before resting in a piece of grass. I kicked at it again for good measure before walking around a man that blocked my path and crossing my arms over my chest. It had been an hour and I was still angry and not used to holding onto emotion for this long. Usually it was gone or buried by now but this came up every few minutes as a friendly reminder and the harder I tried to let it go the harder it came back. It wasn't his fault it was mine. For believing that he was more than human and having an idea that he had no desires or flaws and knew what needed to be down before anyone else could. For having an image of who he was before I met him and trying to fill in the lines that weren't really there. It didn't make me any less angry though. I exhaled deeply and scanned the buildings that lined the street and the people that filled them and nothing familiar or comforting about any of them. It used to be easier. Disappear into a new place with the same pieces but a different way of putting them together but now ... now all I saw were enemies and places that in four years would be rubble and me at the helm responsible for keeping what remained together. It was suffocating. And like everything else in the moment it wouldn't allow itself to be buried. Ignoring it instead I caught the eye of a library standing out from between a series of trees and a line of steps to the door. I crossed over the sidewalk and up the steps and through the doors before I could think any further on it and into the air conditioned front lobby. It was quieter inside – the silence more comforting then the sound and I walked past the front desk to where all the aisles lined up and each and every one of them full of books. And all I lacked was a library card. I smirked at the thought and walked over instead to the row of computers, these ones older then at the electronics store and wear and tear to the keys.  
"You need to pay to use those," a voice said it behind me and I half turned to see a woman with frizzy brown hair and glasses low on her nose. She nodded to the computers as if I hadn't heard. "You need to pay for those."  
"How much?" I wondered, fingers digging into my pockets and whatever change I had left over from the laundry.  
"One dollar per hour," she answered, adjusting the books in her arms and readying her hand to be held out for her payment. I pulled out a crumbled, ripped bill and handed it to her without checking how much it was and turning to sit down at the nearest computer. It was already loaded and I scanned the icons on the side and trying to guess which one they all were without opening them and how they changed since the last time I had used a computer. Years. David couldn't afford one and I hadn't had access for a long time before that. I clicked on one that looked like a search engine and it slowly loaded as a cartoon paper clip came up on the side and asking if I needed help. I smiled faintly. These were the things that were going to take over the world. And I was going to be the one that stopped them. I couldn't tell which was funnier. The search engine blinked at me and I typed in "Amanda Connor" with a sense of deprecating humor. A dozen or so results came up – a comic book artist, a CEO for a power plant company – and none of them that I recognized which I guess was symbolic. I backspaced the results and tapped my fingers on the keys, hard enough that they made a sound but not enough that they entered. Readjusting in my chair I typed "Amanda Reid" in instead. Over one hundred came up this time and I scrolled down the list before clicking on the top one. Something about being a fugitive and dying in a bank – the same as the one John had read but without him controlling the pace I read. I scanned down the page and jumping from sentence to sentence so I knew the generalization of what it said but not enough to recite it back. I was a fugitive, a bank robber, a possible murderer and presumably dead. None that really stung or made an impact – just words on a page on a web page that no one probably ever searched and in a few years wouldn't even exist to be remembered by. I scanned to the bottom anyways and froze on the picture near the sources. My stomach went cold and the lights seemed to dim and I shifted closer in my seat to stare at it and make sure it was worthy of the reaction or just something I saw wrong. I was smiling in it – gapped teeth and hair in braids that I had done myself but falling apart because no one had ever taught me how. And beside me on my arm was Ally. Just as I remembered her. Young and smiling with her own two front teeth missing and patches to her shirt that I had made before it was handed down to her. Her hand was in mine and I remember it being tight as the picture was taken and half moon marks in my palm from when she finally let go. I wanted to run. I wanted to run and never stop and didn't know if I wanted to stop and I wanted to stare at this picture and remember a thousand details of it and always be looking for one that one more that I might have forgotten. I took a deep breath to clear my head and choked on it so the woman next to me raised her eyebrows in more annoyance then concern. I ignored her and found the print icon at the top of the screen and clicked it before leaning back in my chair and tightening my fingers together so they wouldn't shake. The printers behind me whirred and I stood to go over to them and clearing through the pages that no one had bothered to pick up and the rest of the article until I could find the one with the picture and folding it carefully to put into my pocket and walking out the front doors.

I ran my finger over the image of her face for the hundredth time and the ink finally giving and starting to smudge. She must have been eight when we took this. I would have been ten. People said we could have been twins though. Same eye colour and smiles with other details of a similar jawline and hands that people had listed to us that our genetics had won out and we had both been beautiful. Back when I thought it mattered if I was or not. Back when she knew no difference. A door opened and closed downstairs and I refolded the picture so I could fit it back into my pocket and to my hip. Footsteps echoed on the floorboards and a distant call of my name that I was half tempted to ignore. Let him think that I wasn't here and worry for once. But I wasn't cruel and neither was he for mine to be forgivable.  
"Up here!" I rested back on the pillows to wait for him and the footsteps came up on the stairs and through the hall until I could see him at the door and hesitating with his fingers to it. He stood there silently, silent stained to his neck and cheeks like he had been running and instinct wanting me to ask what was wrong.  
"Can I come in?" He gestured to the room with a short glance and I followed his for any detail that might give away that it was my room or that he had to ask. Bed, dresser, window, closet, chair ... just a room. Not mine.  
"Sure," I shuffled up higher on the pillows and he cautiously walked over to the sit in the end of my mattress and his hands trapped between his knees. We both waited – each one hoping the other would say something and neither of us wanting to concede and be the one to say it. And in that moment I saw that I was no more or less a child then he was and the idea of it terrifying.  
"How'd your errand go?" I asked, not wanting to let the thought rot inside of me and asking before it did. He snorted at the question and stared down at the carpet I had half heartedly tossed in for an attempt of making it look more like mine but instead like a room I had surrendered to someone else to decorate and that person failing.  
"Interesting," he said, picking the safest word like I would have and making me smile that it was a similar trait. He looked up at me, light from the window cut over his face and sharpening his cheekbones as if I was seeing him twenty years from now. Older. But still handsome. "What about you?"  
"I didn't have an errand to run," I replied flatly, more tired than annoyed when the words came out. A smile quirked at the corner of his lips.  
"I hope I didn't worry you too much," the words contradicted the tone and sounded like he had really hoped I did but worried I'd notice or worse off deny it. I tilted my head to the side and the light reshaped to instead soften his cheeks and making him look this time younger but not bothering me as it did a moment ago. It made me want to run my fingers over his jaw and see if I could feel stubble.  
"You always worry me," I said honestly. That you'll get yourself killed and that it'll be my fault. That you'll make a wrong step and that everyone will suffer for it. That you won't love me like you're supposed to and that I won't be able to love you enough. He didn't hear those though and what he did hear made him smile.  
"John?" We both looked up and saw Sarah standing at the door, not waiting for the invitation and her shoes already stepped over the threshold.  
"Hey mom," John uncomfortably turned to face her and readjusting how he sat so there was no hint that we were doing anything we weren't supposed to be doing and that a simple change in position could change that. "How'd it go with Enrique?"  
"We need 20 grand," she said in the form of an answer, looking over as if to examine me and find whatever clue that John had hid.  
"So not well," I guessed and her eyes narrowed, dissuaded from whatever I was hiding but not winning her any points that I was losing simply by existing with her sons last name.  
"Get your shoes on," she said, nodding to us both – me begrudgedly – and already making to leave the room. "Do you want your new names or what?"

The metal steps of the fire escape creaked and groaned as I climbed them and with each one convincing me that this was the one that would give out and drop me and that I had a long way to fall. Almost ironic if I was supposed to co-lead a Nuclear war and died from a broken step. I could hear John climbing behind me and would have to maneuver it in such a way as to not land on him and taken him down too. The steps levelled and I stumbled somewhat as I crossed onto the platform and through the broken window with police tape ripped and barely covering off the hole. It was darker inside and I pulled the flashlight I had been given out of my pocket and flicked it on to scan the walls. Dust rose in the air and I could see the decay and disrepair to the room and faintly what looked like blood smeared across the boards.  
"You sure there's money here?" John asked, bumping into my elbow and steadying me before himself as the beam from my flashlight shuddered against the opposing wall.  
"Money, guns, anything they valued," Cameron said calmly, her boots echoing in the empty room and her voice quiet beside it. "It will be hidden. Always hidden."  
"Yeah, well whatever they had, let's hope that the cop didn't get to it first," John observed and crouched against the wall where several papers were pinned to it and the light from my flashlight illuminating over them but only him close enough to read it.  
"Let's hope our metal friend didn't find it," Sarah – always the optimist – said and her voice quiet from where she knelt across the room. I started to walk over past her, my boots clicking on the floor and making patterns in the dust.  
"Our metal friend was only here to kill that fourth fighter when he came home," Cameron answered, walking over with me and looking for whatever I might have found.  
"And he's still out there somewhere?" I asked, scanning the walls and the faded beam over the cracked and chipped walls.  
"Unless it's found him," Cameron answered, looking over the walls and her head turning in calculated movements to allow each one. I looked away from it and the not yet faded ease it made me feel.  
"That's ridiculous," John scoffed and I looked over and saw him looking at a poster of a kitten hanging from a tree branch on the wall and the words "Hang in there baby" printed on the bottom. I bit back a laugh and walked over to join him standing in front of it.  
"People do like small animals," Cameroon pointed out, not understanding the significance.  
"Yeah, but ... I don't know how to explain this," John looked to me for help and I shrugged my shoulders, at as much a loss as him. "Some badass solider is not going to have a kitty poster on the wall. He walked to the poster and ripped it off the wall to reveal an ornate black safe built into the wall with plaster coming down around the sides behind it. "Mom?"  
"Do what you do, girly," Sarah said and I jumped in my skin not knowing she was so close and looked back to see her glancing at Cameron. Cameron nodded and walked over to it and just as she touched the handle she was thrown back and sparks coming off of it and singeing the floor. I pulled John to the floor with me and knelt between him and the safe though the threat seemed to be – for the moment at least – subdued and turned to Cameron who was unconscious on the floor with one arm thrown over her head.  
"They must have rigged it," John guessed, pressing his fingers to her neck for a pulse that wasn't there before turning her head back and forth for any sign that she'd respond. "What'd she say? 120 seconds before the system reboots?" Sarah ignored him and walked over to the safe herself and examined it from a close distance with her flashlight beam showing off the details.  
"We gotta get in there John we can't come back," she said, voice urgent and her boots pacing back and forth on the floorboards.  
"Mom, we'll find the money another way," John assured her, hands rested on Cameron's arm and still tensed for when she'd move.  
"No, whatever's in there I want it now," She pleaded now almost panicked and turning back and forth from the son to the safe and torn between them both. I stumbled to my feet and over to her and for once she seemed welcomed that I was there. "Numbers. What are the numbers? What could the numbers be?" Numbers popped and floated in my head in a thousand combinations and I felt a moment of panic that there were so many and only a few seconds to go through them. Machine. The Future. Skynet. Judgement Day. Judgement Day. I brushed past her and she let me go as I pulled my sleeve over my fingers and carefully pressed in the numbers, braced that it wouldn't work and I would be wrong and it would send me shooting back like the same shock to Cameron but this one more likely to kill me then her. Finishing I grabbed the handle and it opened with a crack and revealing its stark black interior with a brown cloth bag folded in the middle.  
"How did you?" Sarah asked in breathless disbelief.  
"It's a date," I said and briefly turning to her. "Judgement day." She stared at me for the moment I let her and I saw that same look that was less then affection but more than hate in her eyes and undoubtedly reflected in my own.  
"Come on," John brushed past us both and reached into the safe to gather the bag and handing it off to Sarah as a dog suddenly starting barking downstairs and we all tensed. It continued unhindered and distantly underneath it the sound of footsteps. I sprang into action and landed at Cameron's side as John did on the other as we both strained to lift her and the muscles standing out and straining in my arms as her feet dragged across the floor with the rest of her not much higher. Sarah rolled a chair over to meet us and we dropped Cameron into it, my arms seizing and with no time to recover them pushing her back and in line with the window. John dove for two bags on the floor and ran on ahead of me to toss them out the opening and I spun the chair around so Cameron faced it before running it hard against the wall and causing her to roll and topple out of it and down the five or so storey drop. She fell through mid air for a moment before landing on a parked car and the roof of it shattering under her weight. I ran around behind where the chair still stood and past Sarah and John who were both staring at me with disbelief and to crawl out the open window to the fire escape.

I dropped from the last step and over to where Cameron was sitting up in the crushed metal and no worse for wear then if she had simply fallen asleep and taken a nap. She pushed herself off of the car and to the ground to join us and I felt something prickle at the back of my neck and turned to see someone standing behind the metal fence that made up one side of the alley and shrouded in dark. My heart rate jolted for a second before John's hands closed around my elbow and I was following after him and the others before briefly looking back and seeing that where he had been standing before was empty.

"What are those?" Cameron asked and I looked up from the gun in my hand to see her instead looking to John and a small grey pouch clutched in his fingers. Setting the gun down next to the others that I'd found John poured the contents into his palm and they glittered in the light as he turned them.  
"Diamonds," he explained and held the hand out to me so I could see for myself and looking up to check that I did. I reached over and took several from his hand and the jagged points digging into my fingers.  
"Girl's best friend," I commented, letting them fall into my palm and turning them back and forth so rainbow light scattered over my palm.  
"Why?" Cameron asked, looking confused and stepping closer to me to look over my shoulder to see if my actions could answer her question.  
"I don't know," I admitted and held out my handful to her so she could take and obliging so she could turn them between her own fingers and squinting at it in the light. Still staring it she turned and walked from the room, carefully avoiding the walls as she passed and her boots quietly echoing down the hall.

I curled up deeper into the corner of the couch and let my gaze stop from person to person around the room as they either ignored me or took the chance to look me up and down and continue as if what they saw was not worth of great attention.  
"Want a drink, kid?" I looked over at one of the men next to me with his boots up on the cluttered table and a beer bottle in his hand. He turned it back and forth for me with a smirk, thinking that I was a child and I could be enticed by the pretty colour and movement. Which probably meant that he shouldn't be offering me a beer.  
"No thanks," I tried politely and met Sarah's eyes from where she stood in the middle of the room which as much comfort as I felt. She nodded to acknowledge that she saw me before turning her gaze back around the room.  
"Come on, girl like you you've never had a drink?" My "friend" asked again and I looked back over to him to see that out of all the people he had been the one whose attention I held. He offered it out to me with that same smirk and another man counting bills across from us stopped what he was doing to watch. I weighed the cons against the pros before leaning over to take it from him and taking a long sip. It was warm and burned down my throat and sick in my stomach but I finished it and handed it back to him, wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve. He took it in surprise and I felt satisfied for a moment before the nausea fully settled and I felt more stupid for being baited then proud that I caught him off guard. He turned back away from me and quietly sipped at what I left him and his interest in me subdued. I looked back over to the other man who had been watching and he turned away as I noticed him and busied himself with again counting bills. I burrowed deeper into the couch again and contemplated how easily I could climb over one of them if I had to make a break for it and be sick.  
"They're exactly what you asked for," a voice stood out from the others and I glanced over to see the man – Carlos – who had been talking to Sarah earlier now standing back at her side and holding a thick yellow envelope out to her. "These ain't just forgeries. This is full service. You're in the system and everything. Collect welfare with 'em if you want."  
"We might have to," she answered, taking it from him and peeling open the top so she could rummage around inside of it. Carlos leaned over to the table in the center of the room and took an opened beer bottle off of it an took a deep draft of it before returning to stand at her side.  
"Didn't take you too long to round that up so I'm feeling the price was right," satisfied with her reaction he walked over to an arm chair and threw himself into it so the back shuddered and the springs underneath creaked. "Maybe you'd have gone another ten g's."  
"Uncle Enrique would be proud," Sarah remarked, envelope again closed and her fingers holding the top of it together.  
"So I miss the next family barbeque," he shrugged and glanced over and noticed me still huddled in the corner. "Your girl want a beer?" He winked as he said it, the beer only half the offer.  
"She's underage," Sarah said through her teeth and gestured for me to get up and follow her, what we came for done. Never stopped anyone before, I thought but obeyed and stood so the floorboards swayed somewhat and the man next to me pulled back his legs so I could pass. I stumbled over the corner of the couch anyway and Sarah pressed a hand to my back to steady me and her grip firm as she guided me around the sprawled men and after Cameron to the front door.

The air was cold and cleared my head but my steps angered my stomach so I gritted my teeth and walked through them and hating that little sense of pride I had left that made me take the beer. Sarah pretended not to notice and seemed distracted besides so I slowed my walk and wrapped my arms around my stomach and counting how much further it was until we would take to get home before I could lay down or be sick – whichever would feel better when we got there.  
"Thank you," I said the words out before I could think them and no context to suggest why I did. Sarah looked over at me, a breeze pulling at her hair and the collar of her jacket.  
"For what?" She wondered, turning again to look down the street and Cameron silent on the other side.  
"Taking me with you. Tonight," I shrugged like it made no difference and dropped my arms to dig into my pockets instead and my stomach at a loss from the sudden lack of contact.  
"You earned it," she said with just as much indifference as I had and exhaling deeply into the cold so I could see her breath thicken. "Back at the safe. You earned it." She glanced at me for a moment before looking away and I felt at a loss to the pride I felt that I didn't have to create for myself alone. Acknowledged by someone else and still felt by myself. It was odd feeling and I wasn't sure if I liked it entirely.

"So where are you from?" Cameron asked, hands neatly folded over the table but the hold of them too stiff so it ruined the illusion of someone simply professional and giving away that it was an unnatural pose for her.  
"Lawrence, Kansas actually," John answered, his tone of voice light and conversational and leaning on his arm that rested itself on the table in front of the papers we'd both have to memorize. "It's a pretty good size city. About 80 000." I hid a yawn and buried my chin into my knees to cover it and wishing I could crawl back into bed until tomorrow when the alcohol had finally worn off and people could speak without the words echoing in my head afterwards.  
"Go to Kansas City often?" She wondered and a small smile touched her lips in an attempt to make her look friendlier. It matched the smile I sometimes wore but seeing as how I forced it when I did it it didn't look any more realistic by her. Or maybe I was just in a bad mood.  
"Well, Lawrence is about 50 miles east of Kansas City," John replied, sounding bored but smug that he knew the answer and picking at the cuffs of his sleeves.  
"25 miles west," Cameron corrected and I managed a grin.  
"I knew that," John insisted, blinking rapidly for a moment and looking over at me so that he knew I heard it and was reminded of how smart he was.  
"What about your father?" Sarah asked footsteps loud on the tile and grating in my ear drums. I pulled my sleeves over my ears and buried my face deeper into my jeans and wishing that they'd all go away. "Your father. Did we leave him behind in Lawrence, Kansas?" Her steps came closer and something glass clinked on wood and I peered between my knees at the table where she had set a mug of something steaming. "For your stomach." She nodded at me to take the glass and I untangled myself from the chair to reach over and rest it in my lap, the heat of it burning through the glass and making the skin of my legs sweat.  
"Your father's dead," Cameron answered for us both, head tilted and looking at me curiously and trying to determine what was wrong without asking. Warm beer on an empty stomach. That was what's wrong. "He was a police officer. He died apprehending a criminal. He's a hero."  
"Yeah I know that," John said suddenly bitter and leaning back in his chair. "My dad's always a hero. And he's always dead." He stood up from the chair and walked around and past me and out of the room, fingers catching and dragging at the counters as he passed. Sarah watched him go and with a quick glance at us followed him. I lifted the mug to my lips and took a carefully sip and was rewarded with a burn to my tongue that replaced any taste.  
"Are you ill?" Cameron asked, head tilting to her other shoulder and eyes darting back and forth over my head.  
"No, I'm fine," I shrugged, resting the mug to my knees and pressing the glass to my cheek. "A little hangover."  
"I saw you drink. You cannot get hung over from one sip of alcohol. Unless you're a light weight," I raised my eyebrows at her and tried to remember whether or not I had taught her that word. Her eyes lowered for a moment as she thought before meeting mine again and widening. "Are you pregnant? Women when pregnant often feel sick in the morning. Have you and John had sex?" I slowly straightened in my chair and ignored the ache in my stomach as it stretched.  
"No," I answered slowly, embarrassed that she had asked and wondering if I should have already or if on at least this I was allowed some freedom.  
"You do in the future. You have children. Children are made from sex," she asked it almost eagerly like she was waiting for my approval on the answer and I slowly nodded to give it but pausing mid nod.  
"How many children?" I wondered, the word foreign on my tongue and even more unnatural when I associated it with myself. I never thought I'd have kids and yet that had already been decided for me as well.  
"Three," she said, nodding to indulge my question. "Two boys and one girl. That's when I was sent back. You may have more now." She smiled that same smile that I had taught her and I let her words sink as I imagined three nameless and faceless children that would one day be mine and my stomach rebelling against the thought of carrying them. I wasn't meant to have children. No maternal bone in my body and no desire to have one and yet years from now in a future worse than this one I'd love John so much I'd be willing to bear his children and fight a war alongside him. I didn't understand that version of myself. I didn't recognize her.  
"Or maybe you have the flu?" Cameron tried again and I shoved down my thoughts under everything else and not looking forward to the moment when it came back up to drown me. That wasn't right now though and for the moment that was fine.  
"Maybe," I granted and took another sip from the mug.

I ran my finger back and forth over the laminated image of the ID and trying to reconcile some sort of familiarity with it but being left with the idea that the girl staring back at me was someone I used to know but had long ago forgotten and could only recall minor details of. Her face was solemn and her hair was brushed but her eyes were quiet and that was made it click that somehow this girl was me. I stretched my legs down the bed so I could reach into my pocket and my stomach protesting that I had moved. I pulled out the photo I had printed of me and Ally and folded it so that I could compare the ID and the photo together and trying to guess how one became the other. They looked the same. Might have even be the same person but there was no smile and the eyes were empty she'd forgotten how to fill them and let them go silent so people could only guess what she was thinking and never have that clue telling them if they were right. It was the more comforting of thoughts I had and I tried to match the smile but it fell into the one I allowed myself instead of the one that came naturally and popping my metaphorical bubble. Footsteps echoed on the floor boards outside my door and I lowered the piece of paper and slid it under my pillow to hide it and in hopes of flattening it out. Sarah turned her head around the corner and found me curled up innocently in my bed and examining my new ID between my fingers.  
"Hey," she greeted with a nod and mild wave.  
"Hey," I matched and lowered it to my lap so she'd know she had my attention. Not sure what to do with it she glanced around the room and again reminding me that it wasn't mine and just a place to rest one until ultimately we found another and the same affect to that one as well.  
"Can I come in?" She asked, gesturing to the walls and referring the question to them instead of me. I shrugged and she stepped in and dug her fingers into her pockets as she walked onto the carpet and the thickness of it swallowing the sound of her footsteps. She stopped at the end of my bed and looked at it as if to sit but satisfied herself instead with running her fingers over the footboard.  
"How are you feeling?" She asked, looking to me and the faded light from my lamp shadowing half her face. "Any better?"  
"Not really," I admitted, folding my arms over my stomach to demonstrate. "Cramps."  
"Ah," she said, understanding and leaving the topic untouched as she looked around the room again and at the box of books I'd found earlier and dragged in. "You like to read?"  
"They left it behind when they left," I said instead, not answering her question and not intending to either. She nodded, accepting that I wouldn't and looking around for anything else to comment and finding herself at a loss of anything to focus on. She was like John like that but that he looked for something to say because he wanted to and she did only because she felt she needed to. I could have told her she didn't need to bother but something kept my quiet and waiting for her to speak first.  
"You nervous about school tomorrow?" She finally asked, looking back to me and her search around the room not allowing her anything. I bit back a laugh and a comment about how in comparison to everything else we'd gone through school was mundane and useless.  
"Not really. Not first time at a new school," I shrugged it off and picking at the bottom of my shirt which was already fraying from the last person who'd had it and given it to the donation bin where we'd gotten it.  
"It's not like last time," she insisted, more comfortable on footing with reprimanding me then trying to make conversation. "It's different. You're important now and you have to abide by that." She stared me down so I heard the implied threat to her words but I only heard the "you're important _now" _part and had a self pitying moment where I wished for anonymity and no responsibility to anyone but myself and owing it to no one either. But I didn't and I couldn't.  
"I know," I said quietly, meeting her eyes and waiting for her to drop it but this time not letting her as easily. She blinked instead and readjusted her fingers on my foot board.  
"You remember everything?" She asked, nodding at the ID I had been holding and the papers I needed to remember on my desk.  
"Amanda Baum. Grade eleven. Moved from Lawrence Kansas with my brother John and my sister Cameron and my mom. Father was a police officer and he died a hero. I like walks on the beach and getting caught in the rain," I added the last two details for snark and her eyes narrowed as she heard it and not happy that I included it. I waited for her to comment on it but she instead nodded and allowed me to have it in place that I remembered everything else.  
"Good. Well ... you should get some sleep. Big day tomorrow," she tried to smile encouragingly but whatever dislike she had for me got in the way and she left before she could commit to it and closing the door behind her. It closed with a creak and the light left in the room dramatically decreased as I turned the aim of the lamp and it brightened up the carpet and the dust and dirt settled in it.  
"Yeah," I said quietly and to no one in particular. "Because the rest of them have been small ones."  
And I switched off the light


	3. The Turk

The last remains of the coffee dripped into the pot and the mechanics of it groaning as the beans emptied and it was metal against metal. I reached over to switch it off and pulling out the pot so steam rose out from under the lid. I walked over to the cabinet to pull out a glass but picked the wrong one and had to move one over. More than a week and I still had to remind myself where everything was. More force of habit than anything else as I was never anywhere long enough to develop a pattern to where things went and how to find them again. I pulled down a mug from the stained cabinet bottom and carried it over to the coffee to pour myself a glass. I'd never really drank coffee before but it seemed like something natural to do and I was craving a sense of normalcy and of course coffee was the only thing I could think of. I walked back around the Island table and to the fridge and pulled out the remains of the milk bag and poured it in so the black swirled white and then like faded caramel. I dug out a spoon from the drying rack and scooped in liberal amount of sugar and stirred it, stupidly pleased with myself that it was going well. I tossed the spoon back into the sink and took a tentative sip. I instantly burned my tongue and coughed as it came off bitter and acidic and set it down hard so I could turn on the tap water and stick my head under the flow. I breathed heavily through my nose as I watched the water wash down the drain before pouring out the coffee after. Figures that it wouldn't go well.  
"Morning," John greeted from the doorway and I looked up to see him dressed and ready and his hands as always tucked into his jeans. He grinned when I noticed him and flicked his hair out of his eyes. I smiled back at him, tongue still burning.  
"Morning," I said and turned the mug over in the sink to hide the evidence of it and stepping back to lean against the counter.  
"You made coffee?" He nodded at the still half full pot and I glanced over at it to make sure that it was what he was talking about and that in at least appearance I got it right.  
"Kind of," I admitted, the glued on tile chipping off against my hands as I tugged at it.  
"What do you mean 'kind of'," He asked with a shy grin. I shrugged, not sure if I was willing to go into detail.  
"I mean: I've never really made coffee before so I'm not sure if I did it right." Confessing my minor weakness I walked over to the Island again and started pilling the books out on top of it into my bag and keeping my hands busy so he couldn't see I was uncomfortable.  
"I'm sure you did great," he insisted and to prove it pulled himself out his own mug and poured himself a glass. I stopped fidgeting to watch him and he took a deep sip of it and instantly grimaced at the taste but forcibly swallowed it as if not to hurt my feelings. He took a deep breath after he did and forced a laugh so I knew he was alright.  
"That's awesome," he congratulated and tapped his fingers on the side of it as if debating how far he was willing to take his kindness.  
"You're sweet," I said before I could think it out first and he looked up at me startled, fingers stilling on the glass.  
"You think so?" He asked suddenly shy and grinning down at the mug so I wouldn't see him blush. In comparison to most guys I'd known he was but that toned down the compliment so I only nodded and brushed back my hair so he thought that I was also blushing and that we had a moment he could look back on and play over and over in his head. Footsteps came into the room and I glanced over to see Sarah walk in and her arms politely folded behind her back and cautious that she was interrupting.  
"Morning," John said, setting down the mug and stepping a safe distance from it.  
"Coffee?" I asked and he laughed as he bent down to one of the lower cabinets and pulling out a cereal box. Confused by the joke Sarah walked to the mug he set down and taking a sip made a pained face and returned it to where it had stood with less grace then John had.  
"Okay," She said, unfolding a piece of paper from her pocket and multiple creases set into it like it had been folded and refolded at least a dozen times. She spread it out onto the Island beside my things and holding down the sides so that she could read it better. "Six ways in. Six ways out. The front door opens to the street here." She gestured to a point on the map and I briefly glanced at it to placate her but had already memorized it. "Security's minimal. Two armed guards in the morning. Four in the afternoon. And if anything goes wrong, there's a parking lot. Here." She pointed again but this time I didn't bother to look.  
"Mom, it's a high school," John pleaded, abandoning the cereal box and moving closer to reassure her. "Not supermax. We can handle it." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed his lips to her head as in return she leaned into the kiss. I looked away to allow them their moment and closed up the top of my bag so I could safely pull it over my shoulder.  
"We can handle it," Cameron repeated, standing at the corner of the Island and her hands carefully folded over her bag strap. John moved past me for his own bag and Sarah looked to me as if also waiting for me to also say it and I stared back at her to wordlessly convey that I got the message.  
"Don't you kiss me," she said simply and I ignored it to quickly lean over and peck her cheek before walking on after John and not bothering to ask myself why I did it.

"Okay, now blend in," John advised, the grass still wet from dew slick under my shoes and trampled from being walked over so many times.  
"Blend in," Cameron repeated, held high and her steps stiff as she walked in pace with us and one or two kids from the bicycle rack turning away to snicker at her.  
"Yeah, I mean don't seem like a freak," John warned, noticing the two of them and his voice lowered so they couldn't hear us too. "You know what I mean, right?"  
"Freak. Weirdo. Kook. Oddball. Crackpot. Strange Duck. Queer potato. Nut," she listed them off and glancing at us for any reaction suggesting which one we would prefer. "I've been reading the dictionary. I don't sleep."  
"Yeah, see, that's what I'm talking about," John sighed, not as impressed as she had hoped. "You do that, you should like a freak. And don't walk around acting like our bodyguard." He nodded to me so I knew he meant me as well and I felt monetarily offended that he thought I needed one. "You're supposed to be our sister. You won't fool anyone." We came to the crowd milling around the front entrance and as force of habit I glanced around at each one and seeing them all as enemies which was – I supposed – a natural reaction to high school though the reasons behind it different.  
"What's that all about?" He wondered and I followed where he was looking to an image of a door spray painted on the wall and the letter "A" clearly the focus at the top. Losing interest he walked past and I followed as Cameron came up behind us.  
"Seems to be a reimaging of a trompe l'oeil fresco," she explained calmly and we both stopped to look back at her. "I don't sleep." John scoffed lightly and blended into the crowd pushing through the doors and I went after him as close as I could get and tempted to hook my fingers into his backpack so there was no chance I'd lose him though it might be crossing a line if I did so since we were pretending to be brother and sister.  
"Cell phones, hats, rings and blings," A tall man in a clean pressed shirt said up ahead of us, talking over everyone and loudly so that he would be heard. "Take it off and put it in the basket. Cell phones, hats, rings and blings in the basket." The crowd thinned somewhat and separated and I could see through it the several metal detectors set up and separating the entrance from the rest of the school. Panic weaselled its way into my stomach and I looked over at Cameron who didn't seem bothered by the news but on a bad day didn't seem bothered then either. Wary of the prospect of walking through – and her after – I ran my hands over my arms for anything metal that might set it off before tossing my cell phone into one of the bins and noting it's shape and colour so I'd remember each one. Digging through my pockets one last time I walked through the detector with John ahead of me and the silence above me indicating that I hadn't set it off. Meeting up with where he stood I turned back to where Cameron walked through and the screen above her turning red and a high pitched beep admitted as she did. The man who had been talking earlier stopped her before sending her back through again to see if it was a malfunction and as expected it went off for a second time and Cameron's face solemn as if not bothered by the disturbance.  
"Excuse me," John interrupted and walked over while pulling me with him and my fingers linked into his back strap so he didn't get too far ahead. "This is our sister."  
"Extra credit for you," the man said dryly.  
"Look, she's got a metal plate in her head," I offered, thinking quickly and the first explanation that came to mind that made sense. The man turned to look at me and his eyebrows raised in exasperation. "A big one." Rolling his eyes he turned back to her and lifted his hand held detector to scan over her shoulders and head as her eyes followed it and it scratched and creaked as he did.  
"I fell," she said flatly as he finally lowered it after several sweeps. "Hard."  
"Alright," he sighed and waving us on past.

John held out the door for me as we walked into the science lab and I took a quick scope of the classroom and the students sitting amongst the tables and chairs and bored before class even started. A thin metal mesh was over the windows and I winced at the possibility of having to break through them.  
"Mr and Ms Baum," the man at the front of the room greeted and the light glinting off the rim of his glasses.  
"Yes," I answered for us both and brushing my hair back from my face.  
"Please take your seats," he gestured to the room with the paper in his hands and I obliged to step around the scattered students and chairs and to a hopefully empty desk. Someone crossed in front of me before I could sit and taking it first before turning to his friend and speaking in hushed voices and glancing over their shoulders at me. Ignoring the slight I walked around them and to another one at the back and dropping by bag by the chair before sitting down and pushing it in closer to the desk. John sat at the one beside me and shoved his bag onto the surface and digging through it as the teacher called for paper and pencil. He turned to me.  
"You need a pencil?" He asked, offering one to me and I took it from him and dug an old notebook from my bag at my feet and opening it on the desk. Someone had attempted a game of hang man on the first page and I stared at it for a second to guess what the missing letters were and with no more luck then the person who played before me as they had a full man hanging from the cartoon rope.  
"Come in," the teacher called as a knock sounded at the door and instead of opening the knock continued and in exasperation he walked over to answer it with three guesses who it really was. He pulled the door open and Cameron calmly stood in the entrance and holding a piece of folded paper in her hand.  
"I'm transferring in," she said simply and held out the paper to him. He took the paper from her to look it over and she scanned over the classroom until seeing us sitting at the back and purposefully made her way over to join us.

"Hey," Sarah called from the front kitchen as Cameron opened the door and I walked on ahead of her to drop my bag on the table and beside the papers Sarah had scattered. "How was school?"  
"I have a metal plate in my head," Cameron replied as a form of an answer. Sarah raised her eyebrows and looked to the two of us for an explanation.  
"She's gonna need a note," John shrugged, tossing his bag onto the counter and resting his hands on top of it.  
"I meant you, not her," she explained and not bothering to even pretend that I was in the room.  
"Yeah, fine," John shrugged and turning towards the fridge. I sat my elbow onto the counter and then my chin to my palm and mentally rehearsed how my answer would go if she asked me.  
"You're not going to give me anything?" Sarah teased and beginning to take the items out of the paper bag bulging on the table.  
"Maybe Amanda would if you bothered to ask her," John answered bitterly, his back to us and voice muffled. It went quiet but for him rummaging through the fridge and Sarah looked over at me as if just pretending to just notice me there and sighing when she took note.  
"How was school?" She asked me after a moment and turning a can of soup back and forth between her hands.  
"Well, nobody's dead so I'd call that a victory," I shrugged and her eyes narrowed, not amused and visually answering why she hadn't asked. John snorted and turned back from the fridge and holding a pop can out to me with his own tucked under his arm. I took it from him and popped it open as Sarah continued to unpack the groceries and moving my bag over so that there was more room.  
"What about you – did you go?" John asked, leaning back against the counter and taking a sip from his own.  
"I did," she nodded, crumbling up the remains of the bag and tossing it into the trash under the sink.  
"And how was she? Surprised to see you weren't dead?" John wondered and taking several cans from the table and working at putting them away.  
"More like disappointed," Sarah smirked. "She ID'd one of the safe house photos. Intern at Cyberdyne."  
"Really? So what does he do now?" John asked, handing me a loaf of bread and silently chastising me to help. I rolled my eyes as I took it from him and walked around him to the bread box. "Work in a lab or build rocket guidance systems or something?"  
"Cell phone salesman," she answered, saying it like it was a joke that she didn't quite understand.  
"Shut up," John grinned.  
"Cell phone salesman," she repeated, grinning along with him. "And not a very good one."  
Footsteps echoed from the hall and into the kitchen and I looked up as Cameron walked in with a towel spread out between her hands and several black pieces of something spread out on top.  
"These need to be cleaned," she said simply and holding them out to Sarah as if in peace offering. Sarah sighed and turned to pick up the dish towel that was draped over the counter and tossing it up onto Cameron's shoulder before gesturing to the sink and demonstrating that she should do it herself.  
"Okay, so about this computer guy," John said, speaking over the interruption as Cameron walked past and to the table.  
"I-I'm having dinner with him tonight," Sarah said uneasily and turned back to the sink, tapping her fingers along the metal of it and suddenly flustered.  
"Dinner? What do you mean, like a date?" John asked with a scoff so that if he had been talking to me I would have been offended.  
"Not a date," Sarah quickly brushed off, more disturbed by the idea of it then his reaction.  
"Are you going to kill him?" Cameron conversationally asked from the table and neatly unfolding the dish towel she was given so the flowers faced up.  
"Kill him?" Sarah demanded and sounding torn between disbelief and anger. "I don't know the first thing about him. He interned at Cyberdyne when he was in college. His photo's in a pile of photo's. Nobody dies till I say so. Tell her." She nodded for John to pass on the message and looking down at the tile so she didn't have to meet any of our eyes.  
"People die all the time," Cameron answered matter of factly, laying out the tools onto the dish towel and carefully spacing them from one another. "They won't wait for her." She stopped as she saw us all staring at her and unaware what she had done to catch out attention. "I fooled you again." And she went back to laying out the tools.

I stretched my leg out from under the bath water and rested it onto the rim of the bathtub and feeling the coldness of the marble against the warmth of my skin. I let it turn back and forth on the edge under my observational eye and slid it back in under the water after finding nothing noteworthy to think about it. I rested my head back against the rim and slid down deep into the water and running my fingers through it with the temperature fading from having sat in it too long. I couldn't remember the last time I had a bath. Last time I sank into the water and let myself sit with my thoughts until the water went cold and my skin became wrinkled. I raised my hands up again and turned them over in front of me, droplets dripping from them and landing back into the water and onto my breasts. Would I ever have wrinkles? Or would I die before I got the chance? Shot down in my prime and buried in an unmarked grave? Assuming my math skills still stood and the timeline stood firm I had at least until I was forty and that was without the time jump in the middle and the chance that I died shortly afterwards. I dropped my hands back into the water and let them sink until they rested at the bottom. Still forty wasn't that old. Over half my life repeated and it still wasn't that old. I turned my leg again and watched it distort under the waves the movement made. I used to make waves when I took baths. Pretend I was a sea creature and I could make storms if I wanted to. Seemed kind of stupid now ... I sighed and sat up properly so the water dripped off me and pulled out the plug so the pipes gurgled and a whirlpool started to swirl by the drain. I reached over the edge of the bath for the towel I dropped on the tile and felt the marble press coldly against my breasts and running goosebumps down my back. I carefully stood in the calf deep water and started to unfold it to drape around me when the door suddenly opened and John stopped frozen in the entrance.  
"Oh God. I'm sorry ... I thought ...," he stumbled over an explanation and alternated between pointedly looking away and sneaking glances before settling on staring up at the ceiling so I could see the muscles of his neck stretch and his Adams apple bob as he swallowed. "I thought you were done ... I didn't think ... I'm sorry ..." I waited for him to stop stuttering and not bothering to cover myself. He had already seen me naked and undoubtedly would again multiple times in the future. "I didn't ... I ..." He finally stopped and let out a deep breath to calm himself and scanned the panels of the ceiling as if either waiting for it or me to say something and break what he presumed was awkward silence.  
"John?" I asked cautiously and he lowered his gaze to be level with mine and forcibly not dropping it any lower. The water gurgled as the last of it flowed down the drain and I carefully stepped out of the tub so not to slip and stood on the bath mat which quickly grew damp under my feet. "It's okay."  
"I know it's okay," he said, blushing and dropping his eyes so that they rested on my feet and deciding it was the safest body part. "I mean we get married so of course I see you ..." He trailed off, digging his hands into his pockets and resting back against the door frame which his eyes still safely glued to my feet and occasionally sneaking up to look at my ankles.  
"Well ... I should get dressed," I said, more from cold then discomfort and draping the towel over my arm.  
"Yes, of course," he quickly stepped back into the bathroom and leaving the doorway open so I wouldn't bump into him as I passed. The tile cracked under my wet feet and then the floorboards as I felt him taking the chance to glance after me as I walked down the hallway and into my room – lingering before I closed the door.

I brushed my hair over one shoulder and leaned over the water fountain and catching water droplets on my lips and tongue and tasting faintly of rust. I pulled back and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, my reflection distorted in the metal frame and of no great note staring back. I made a face at her and she returned it in kind.  
"You done freaking out at the fountain?" I turned to look over my shoulder and saw a girl about my age with her arms crossed over her chest and impatient from the tapping of her boot. Ignoring her I turned back around and took another prolonged sip that I didn't want or need but satisfied as the tapping grew louder and her huffs of impatience more frequent. Finally stepping back I waved a hand at the fountain and with an air that she should be honoured that I allowed her to have it at all. She scoffed and walked over to take it, boots clicking on the tile and her hearing dramatically flipped over one side to catch me in the stomach. I stepped back and away from her and down the hall and paused as I saw John standing at his locker and staring at me but looking away when he noticed me looking. My heart panged at the sense of déjà vu but I pushed the sentimentality of it down like everything else and instead tried to think of what I could say that would make him meet my eyes again. Out of all places you'd think it would be the safer one to look but he was still a teenage boy and teenage boys blush and pretend to look away when they saw girls naked. Letting my breath out slowly I pushed off the wall and walked on down the hall and ducking into the bathroom which was filled with girls fixing up their makeup and jostling one another aside for a better look in the mirror. Cameron was one of them and standing face to face with two girls with disgusted looks on their faces and in contrast to the plain confusion of hers.  
"... I said bitch whore much?" One of them asked, popping each word with her tongue and standing close enough to Cameron that anyone else would have stepped back but she held her ground. "What are you looking at?"  
"A bitch whore," I slid on past a girl eager to get around me and walked over to where the three of them stood, Cameron acknowledging me by a slight incline of the head while the other two turned and stared.  
"And who do you think you are?" The shorter one asked, hand on her hip and scoffing in preparation for my answer.  
"I'm her sister," I said with surprising defense and placing a hand on my own hip to match hers and mocking it as I did. "And you asked her a question so I answered. She's looking at a bitch whore." The bell rang somewhere above us and the two girls glanced at one another before making a wide breadth past and identical disgusted looks to match. Many of the other girls cleared out and I pressed myself back against the counter to let them pass as the sinks finally cleared and I could run the water of one to splash it over my face and neck.  
"Thank you," Cameron said politely and I looked up at the reflection of her, her fingers on the strap of her bag and her head tilted as if considering whether or not my actions were deserving of thanks. I turned off the taps and dried my hands on my jeans.  
"What are sisters for?" I teased but the words fell heavier then I intended and I wish I hadn't said them after I did. She looked at me curiously before I forced myself to smile the way I trained with and wiping my now dry hands on my damp jeans.  
"I should get to class," I said shortly and with her nod that she heard walking past and out the door so that it slowly shut behind me.

I knelt down beside my desk and shoving my books and recently purchased pencil case inside it and pulling the broken zipper shut so that it only went half way and left a gap on the other side. Someone whistled behind me and I turned in my crouch to see one of my classmates – Alex or something – standing above me and his eyes glued to the space of skin between the top of my jeans and bottom of my shirt. He didn't raise them as I turned and I waited for him to say something before taking the hint that he wasn't and standing up so I could swing my bag over my shoulders.  
"Can I help you?" I asked, turning the bag so I could half hold it out in front of me and cross an arm over top of it so I could better hold it shut.  
"Thought it might be the other way around," He leaned back against the desk with his arms folded and clicking his tongue in approval that he didn't have the vocabulary to say in words. I indulged him with a weak smile and tried to step past him but his arm was out and around my wrist before I could take the full step.  
"Don't be like that," he soothed and running his thumb along the inside of my arm as if it calm me but the pressure too hard and holding me steady rather than calm. "You're new to the school, you want to fit in. I can help with that." I waited for him as he pulled me closer and so I could feel the heat of his breath on my shoulder before dropping my arm from my bag and snapping my palm into his nose and shoving it up. He cried out in pain and released me to clutch his nose and blood already leaking between his fingers. I shook out the tremors in my arm and turned again to walk past him and over a chair he had dropped and to the door where John was waiting. I ignored him and walked past him as well but he followed after me, jogging awkwardly to keep up with my pace.  
"Are you okay?" He asked in a hushed whisper, flipping his half empty bag over his shoulder so that it didn't bump with his step. "I saw what happened ... I wasn't sure if I should help."  
"I'm fine," I insisted, wrist still tingling and the boys blood dotting my fingers. "I handled it."  
"I know," he said but stepped around in front of me so I was forced to stop and look at him. His hair was combed back for once and his eyes vulnerable in their fade between hazel and green. His hand steadied me by the bag strap and I took the pause to release the breath I hadn't noticed I was holding and the ones after it shaky.  
"Look I'm sorry about last night you surprised me and ...," He trailed off, glancing down the hall and swallowing words he wasn't sure whether or not he should say. I waited and watched the thoughts behind his eyes before being distracted by the slight part of his lips. "I like you, okay?" He looked back and met my eyes with his shoulders sagging with the words as if saying them had let off more weight then he realized that he was carrying. I blinked, knowing that he would at least eventually but startled anyway that he did. "You're beautiful and you're smart and you're funny and brave and you have this really annoying way of always catching me off guard." He laughed awkwardly and licked his trembling lips. "And that's awesome and all but don't take it as to mean that you can't ask for help if you need it. You're not alone in this." His voice quieted on the last words and his gaze stilled so that I became locked in it and for the first time of my own free will wondering if his lips were soft and what they would taste like if I kissed them.  
"Ms Baum!" A man's voice boomed from down the hall and I took a careful step back from John to the appropriate brother / sister distance and following the sound to a burly man by the math classroom door and his face etched darkly, the boy I just assaulted standing behind him and still holding his bloody nose. "Can I have a word with you?" No, but he probably wouldn't appreciate it if I said it.  
"Jumper! Outside the gym!" The voice echoed down the hall and suddenly everyone that remained in it before next class rushed after where he had called and excitedly asking questions as he went. I grabbed John's hand to pull him after me to blend into the crowd and the teachers attention hopefully replaced as Cameron jogged up beside us with her hair bouncing lightly on her shoulders.  
"What's going on?" John asked her and I noticed as we passed another spray paint image of a door but this one with the silhouette of a blonde girl and a man kissing through it. The side door ahead of us banged against the outside wall and I craned my neck to see up along the side and to the roof and a girl minuscule against the backdrop of the clouded sky visible on top of it. John's hand tightened in mine and he ran over to join the crowd milling beneath the second building and the group of them alternatively yelling for her to jump and the others telling them to shut up.  
"Jump!" One of them closest to us yelled, hands cupped around his mouth so his voice carried and a laugh ending his call.  
"Dude, come on!" John said, angrily hitting at his arm to drop his hands. He turned to glare over at us and his nose swollen and bloody so I recognized it as the boy from the classroom and him recognizing me as his eyes narrowed.

"That's my new friend," Cameron said calmly, neck craned to look up at her and not needing to squint from whatever sunlight reflected off the roof top. "The crying girl from the bathroom." I looked over to her and guessing that it occurred seconds after I left.  
"When?" John demanded, muscles in his neck tightening with the question.  
"Two hours, three minutes ago," she answered, neck still craned and as conversational as if we were discussing the weather and if it would rain or not. "Four minutes ago. She's upset. Her parents are going to kill her."  
"Did you do anything to her?" He accused and she lowered her gaze to meet his eyes.  
"I tried to give her a tight present," she shrugged and holding out a gold coloured makeup compact that she had pulled out of her pocket. I looked back up at the girl standing there and a breeze tugging at the hem of her shirt and pulling it over the edge. Someone else yelled at her to jump and I felt more angry then sick. John moved next to me before I could dwell on it though and I scrambled for the back of his shirt as he ran and nearly disappearing if I hadn't caught him. He led me past a parked car and to the steps leading up to the roof but Cameron caught up to us before he did and pulling him back and holding him against the rail.  
"We gotta help her – no," he said desperately, glancing between her and the girl on the roof and calculating how long it would take for him to get there and whether or not he could before it was too late.  
"No," said Cameron firmly and holding him back as he struggled.  
"I'm going up there," he said through gritted teeth and looked over at me for help but I could only stand there and weigh the chance of how fast he could get there and the risk of it too heavy on one side. He'd get there a moment or a second too late and would be staring down at the body screaming to himself that he should have gotten there fast. He struggled again, recognizing me as a wasted attempt and jerked awkwardly within Cameron's grip. "Let me go. I order you to let me go!"  
"Don't be a freak," she said in terrifying calm and the crowd collectively gasped and I looked up just as she stepped from the ledge and pinwheel through the air until too soon there was a crack of skin on cement and everything tightened inside of me at once so I wanted to curl into myself and hold steady. The crowd shifted in shocked silence and I could see the pavement at the line of my vision darkening and turning red with blood.

I tip toed down the hall and to John's door, the remains of the jar of peanut butter clutched under my arm and the two spoons I'd collected as well digging into my hip. I shifted it so I could reach out and knock and the door creaked by the weight and opened to show him lying on his bed facing the wall but looking over his shoulder as I stood there.  
"Hey," I said quietly and uncomfortably waved.  
"Hey," he answered, enough of him still turned to the wall so I knew he didn't want me to stay and enough holding steady back over his shoulder so I knew he wanted me to. The peanut butter jar groaned under the weight I pressed on it and I wondered for a moment whether it was too late and I could wish him goodnight and retreat back to my own room to read until I passed out and hopefully avoided the nightmares I knew I was going to have.  
"What do you have there?" He asked, making the decision for me and nodding to what to him was the dark shape under my arm. Half relieved that he'd make the motion for me to stay I held up the peanut butter jar so he could see it and his face cracking into a dream that while honest didn't last long.  
"Can I come in?" I asked, for the first time really seeing his name and less note of detail then mine as he didn't even have the carpet by his bed or a box of books shoved under it. He nodded and rolled over so that he lay fully on my back and I closed the door behind me with my foot and crossed over to the foot of his bed and crawling onto the end of it. He sat up and leaned back against the pillows and I pulled the spoons out of my pocket and held one out to him so that he knew that it was his. He chuckled as he took it and tapping it against his palm as I unscrewed the lid and tossed it beside me before running my finger over the rim and sucking down the taste, rewarded for it by my tongue drying out and wishing that I had brought up a glass of milk or at least water.  
"Still not sanitary," he pointed out, tilting the jar towards himself and taking a large scoop with his spoon and demonstrating for me.  
"And I still don't care," I said, turning it back to me but this time using my own spoon and nibbling on the edges of it in hopes that it wouldn't be as dry. We ate quietly for a moment and I watched the shadows from his light pressed itself back and forth along the wall as he moved and making him look bigger when in truth he was only a couple inches taller than me and I wasn't tall to begin with. The shadows shrank as his back arched over his hands and he turned the spoon over thoughtfully between them and even his breathing getting quiet.  
"I could have saved her." He said it so quietly I at first didn't think he meant it for me but he looked up to confirm that it was and his eyes rimmed red so it made the green in them deeper. "I could have saved her." I stuck my own spoon back into the jar where it slowly fell against the side with the base solid and reached over to press my fingers to his wrist and feeling the pulse beneath his skin. It quickened as I touched it and I ran my thumb carefully back and forth over it in the memory of an idea that this is what people did for comfort and that this was the first time in years that I'd tried it.  
"I know," I told him and his eyes widened as it wasn't the answer he expected but why it was the one he gave. If we had only gotten there sooner or he had been a little faster or the crowd not so taunting below her ... we might have been able to save her. I didn't believe it but he did and at that moment he needed that comfort and as he raised his spoon back to his lips with my fingers still on his wrist I managed to give it to him


	4. Heavy Metal

Fingers clicked on keys and I opened my eyes at the sound and turned to look over my shoulder at John sitting at his desk and hands hesitating over the keyboard. The dim light of the lamp made his shadow shudder on the wall and he ran his fingers over his lips as he thought before typing something in.  
"What are you doing?" I asked, squinting slightly and startling him by in his chair so the legs ached on the floorboards.  
"Nothing," he said quickly, exiting out of the page and folding the screen of it down so I couldn't see what he'd been doing. "Nothing." He smiled nervously as if it would convince me to drop the subject.  
"Were you watching porn?" I asked, eyebrows creased in disproval and he laughed, hands crossed over his knees and no physical evidence between them to suggest that he had been.  
"No," he insisted, blushing anyway and glancing at me cautiously before lifting up the screen with the page still loaded and the words "In Memory of Jordan Cowan: 1992 – 2007" printed across it. There was a picture of a smiling girl beside it and I tried to reconcile it with the blurred memory of the girl standing on top the roof but all I could see was blood.  
"Oh," I said, as a way of filling the silence and he nodded before closing the lid again and the light underneath it flashing blue once before dark. A hesitant knock came at the door and we looked up to see Sarah standing in the doorway and glancing between us with coldness in her gaze reserved for me and warmth when she returned it to John.  
"What're you two still doing up?" She asked, leaning back against the doorway and her sleeves too long and covering her hands.  
"Nothing," John shrugged and adjusted himself back in his chair to rest his chin on his knuckles. I nodded my agreement with him and she barely cast another glance my way before her eyebrows narrowed at me lying in his bed.  
"Don't you have your own room?" She asked, voice hard and with a short laugh as if in an attempt to soften it.  
"I prefer this one," I replied shortly and making no sign to move like her tone suggested. She opened her mouth as if to say something in response but Cameron was suddenly standing behind her and cutting whatever she was thinking short.  
"Cromartie's here," she said plainly, arms stiff at her sides and half clenched into fists. "Now."

"I've been monitoring the media for possible threats," Cameron continued, walking away from where she had handed Sarah the newspaper and turning again so her back stood to the TV. "Yesterday, arson at an Oakland dock forced the rerouting of a shipment of refined coltan into the port of Los Angeles."  
"Coltan?" I asked, struggling against a yawn and burying my mouth in my sleeve to hide it.  
"Skynet will use it as a key element in our endoskeleton alloy," Cameron answered, hearing me anyway and not taking her eyes off of Sarah who had finally looked up from the paper.  
"That doesn't mean Cromartie's back," she insisted, folding the paper and tossing it to the cluttered table. "How can it be Cromartie? Are you forgetting that I blew his head off?"  
"I remember," Cameron nodded. "That's why I went to find this." She turned to face the TV and slid a homemade DVD case off the top of it and opened the player to put it in. "You should watch."  
"Should we make popcorn?" I asked dryly, leaning more heavily onto my arm and wishing that I was curled up in John's bed again. Or at the very least my own.  
"If you think it would help," Cameron shrugged and stepped back so we could see but the screen staying blue. "It won't play."  
"Put it on video two," John offered and readjusting how he leaned against the doorway and appearing more awake and less bored then I was. Cameron clicked something and the words "Property of KZPZ" came up to replace the stark colour.  
"Oh," she said simply and head tilted to acknowledge the change. "Thank you for explaining."  
"Where'd you get this?" Sarah asked and walking around where I sat and easing herself into an armchair that rocked under her weight.  
"Check the paper tomorrow for any dead anchorman," John answered for her and walking over closer to the screen with his arms folded over his chest and a lazy pace to his step.  
"I don't sleep," Cameron countered to no one in particular and the screen changing again to show a picture of Sarah from a few weeks ago, naked and staring startled at the camera. She moved to run off the screen as Cameron froze it and the image blurring. "There." She skipped ahead by several frames and something red standing out in the background and leering from where it lay. Uneasily I uncrossed my legs and stood up to walk over and join them and the image becoming clearer as I did so I could see that it was a metal head with its eyes red and pointed forward. "He came through. He knows we're here."  
"It's just a head," Sarah said, sounding confused and squinting at the image.  
"His chip is intact," Cameron warned and turning to address her. "We're programmed to repair ourselves. We're programmed to blend in. He might still need coltan for a missing piece. A leg, an arm. He'll rebuild and continue his mission to hunt and kill."  
"I know what his mission is," Sarah told her and speaking through her teeth. I glanced over at John who suddenly looked uncomfortable and avoided my gaze to stare at the adjacent wall and memorizing the details to it. I contemplated whether or not to take his hand but decided against it thinking that it would bring more awareness to his unease then taking away from it.

"I still have money from the safe house," Sarah continued, walking around the counter and unplugging the microwave from the wall to reach behind it for several small bags with slips of paper stuffed inside. "We can go south, set up across the border, get off the grid ..."  
"Go south?" John repeated and his knuckles cracking as he rocked them against the table.  
"What?" Sarah asked, looking over at me as if I had made the objection.  
"Thought you said we weren't going to run anymore," John protested, anger building in his voice and hardening on each word. "We were gonna fight."  
"This is different, John," she sighed and walking out of the room so he could follow her. I pushed off of the counter to walk after them, burrowing my hands into my pockets and struggling against another yawn.  
"...He's vulnerable," John was pleading and looking back at me to offer him support. "We know where he'll be." I nodded to agree with him and the extent of the support I was awake enough to offer.  
"A new skin means a new face," Cameron insisted calmly and walking over to join us and her arms politely folded in front of her. "We won't know what he looks like."  
"But we'll know where he'll be," John repeated and looking between the three of us as if unsure which one he needed most to convince. "I can hack the port schedule no problem. We find the container and we wait. We hunt him for a change. Or we could run ... again." Sarah turned to walk away from him and he raised his voice so she could still hear. She stopped in the kitchen and rested her hands against the table and scanning over the bags of paper she'd pulled out and meeting his eyes again. He stared back at her, breathless from his speech and the look in his own eyes softening as he went from hardened soldier to pleading child in an instant and asking his mom a favor.  
"The ship comes tonight?" She asked and breaking contact to confirm by Cameron. "The one carrying the coltan?"  
"5:00 AM," Cameron replied and I inwardly groaned at how early it sounded. John took this as a yes and tugged the keys off the hook hanging by the door and walked over to hold them out to his mom and dangling her last chance between yes and no in front of her.  
"Like you're going to drive," she smirked and taking them from him. "Get the shot guns."  
"It's not like I can't drive," John protested with his own smile and stepping out past her to obey and me reluctantly following behind.

I carefully sipped the coffee that John insisted I take – and make for me – and the taste burning my tongue but not as acidic as when I had done it myself. I took a breath of the chilled air to cool it and watched as him and Sarah worked on the bomb they were building between them and Sarah sneaking glances up at him to check that he was holding steady. He ignored the look but returned mine and blushed when he looked away.

I readjusted myself sitting in the dirt in the cramped space between containers and John's knee bumping mine as I moved. Footsteps shifted on the dirtied concrete and Sarah looked up as the light was blocked and Cameron stood in the way of it.  
"Cromartie?" She asked and squinting up at her.  
"Not here yet," Cameron answered and ducking in to lean back against one of the containers. "They're humans."  
"Keep setting the charges," Sarah advised John and ignoring me in the recognition that I didn't know how. Guns were easy but bombs still lay just outside of comfortable. "If he comes for that coltan he'll have to come through here." She pushed halfway to her feet and crouched out of our hiding place to behind a post a couple feet away. John made to follow her before realizing there was no room and awkwardly running behind another one nearby. I didn't move and pressed my back against the coldness of the metal and counting my breathing before looking out around the corner. A wind came through the open doorway leading to the yard and a tall, threatening looking man walked through it with his glasses dark and hiding his eyes.  
"Is that Cromartie?" Sarah asked, spinning on her heels to face us and her eyes darting urgently behind me. "Cameron? Where's Cameron?" She addressed the last to me and I looked over my shoulder to see that she wasn't standing behind me and turned back to shrug that I didn't know. Sarah gritted her teeth in frustration and tightened her fingers on the gun she was holding. John made a move to turn around his post but saw the man walking past and stuttered back to press his back against the wall and closing his eyes as his chest rose and fell in sharp breaths. I watched him with my eyes briefly darting out to catch the rest of the room and the man walking across it. I could be at his side in less than five steps if I ran but there was the question of what I would use to defend him once I got there. I didn't know how to fight hand to hand and even if I did fists and nails wouldn't bring down a Terminator. Sarah gathered herself to her feet with her gun cocked and aimed it where the man still presumably stood – a post blocked my view – but there was a yell and a clatter of weight against the plastic bins by the door and she cautiously lowered it. John looked at me panicked and I scrambled from my hiding place and to his side so I could push him behind me and see that the man had been the one who yelled and was now sprawled by the collapsed bins. Cameron purposeful walked over to grip her arms around his neck tightly for a moment before dropping him back onto the collapsed fence.  
"He'll survive," she informed us as we came on other side of her and his limp boot touching my foot.  
"He's human," Sarah said, sounding confused and almost disappointed.  
"Not a very strong one," Cameron observed dryly and I snorted with a glare from Sarah to indicate that I shouldn't have. The sound of an engine starting echoed through the warehouse and I grabbed John's hand and dragged him behind a wall of still standing plastic bins and his boots stuttering on the dirtied floor as I moved too fast and he couldn't catch up. Sarah and Cameron hunkered down behind us and through the gaps I could see the truck passing in front of us with two men sitting in the front seat.  
"Mom!" John said in panic and I glanced back before following his gaze to a corner of the room where several men lay unconscious on the cement, half naked and their hands tied. "Those other guys just stole the truck." He turned back to face his mother and I eased myself up half an inch and stupidly checking to see if I could see if they were breathing at this angle. I couldn't.  
"Does Cromartie have men working for him?" Sarah asked, a breeze from the still open doorway pushing her hair back over her shoulders. "Does that happen?"  
"You work for me," Cameron pointed out and I turned away from where the men still lay –hopefully unconscious – and back through the gap where the truck was still rambling along and the engine quietly protesting it.  
"We have to follow that truck," Sarah said determinedly and moving away from where she knelt at my back.

I adjusted my footing on the ledge and dug my fingers deeper into the windowsill so the plaster crumbled under my fingers and dusted them white.  
"Shh," Sarah hissed, not even looking at me with the threat and crouched lower then I was though taller then I was too so she could still see through the opening and into the warehouse. I called her several unseemly names in my head and licked my drying lips as voices echoed back and forth inside the warehouse and the beeping of a machine backing up. The shape of it came into view and I squinted at the thin metal vials tightly packed together and held steady with a strap over the front. I couldn't read what they said from here but I had three guesses of what they were with two that were unnecessary.  
"That's coltan," John observed, answering my thoughts and glancing at me and Sarah to make sure that we heard. "If that's what you're made of, no wonder you're so dense." He tossed the last comment to Cameron, grinning as he said it and checking if I also found it funny.  
"Not density," Cameron corrected, the machine carrying the coltan turning and beeping as it moved. "Heat resistance. T600 models had a titanium alloy endoskeleton. But it was vulnerable to heat. Coltan alloys has a higher melting point."  
"You know what I love about you guys?" Sarah asked brightly, apparently the warning for me to keep quiet more of an excuse to tell me off then a rule she had to follow herself. "Even when you've evolved into the ultimate indestructible killing machine, you're not above self-examination and improvement."  
"Thank you," Cameron answered, glancing between her and John as if asking whether or not it was worthy of a thanks.  
"Please shut up," Sarah said, turning back and her fingers adjusting on the sill. One of the men was spraying something on the front of the truck and ripped off the section of black covering it to reveal "6AP0CB" poorly painted between the headlights. "Military tags?" None of us answered and the man who did the painting walked away from the truck and to the men gathering together at the back with the way they reacted to one of them hinting that he was the leader.  
"Leave it," he said, holding up a hand and addressing someone out of my line of sight. "We need to move. Now."  
"How about we get paid, seriously?" One of the men asked jumping down from the back of a truck and wiping his dirt stained hands with an equally dirty rag.  
"How about you shut up and go now?" Another offered and clapping him on the back as he and the others walked off and leaving the boss still standing there. He watched them as they left, remaining for another moment before walking over to the truck and easily picking up a case of coltan and carried it to the other truck before setting with a hard crunch. I blinked in surprise.  
"He's not damaged at all," Sarah said in confusion, her eyebrows knotting and looking over at me and John. Cameron ignored her as her eyes narrowed and watching him as he walked away from the truck and stripping off his jacket.  
"That's not Cromartie," she answered, head tilting slightly and her hair falling over it to touch her shoulder. "Endoskeletal structure points don't match." John and Sarah turned back to look her and I snuck a glance as well as her eyes continued to be rooted to the Terminator and not noticing that we were staring at her. "He's too short."  
"Another one?" Sarah asked, her voice going quiet. "Well, why does he have all this? I thought these things just hunt and kill people." John stiffened next to me and I cast a glance at him that he met but told me nothing.  
"They perform whatever mission they're programmed for," Cameron explained, eyes still locked in the storage room and oblivious that her hair was blowing lightly around her face.  
"And what kind of mission is this?" Sarah asked, asking what we were all thinking and sobering us with hearing it aloud.

"We still have the charges. We can rig 'em at the door," John was saying, jogging to the back of the jeep and digging around in the back of it. He pulled out the knapsack he found there and swung it over his shoulder so the buckles clacked. "Blow 'em when they try to drive out. Then Cameron can take out ..."  
"Get in the car. We're going," Sarah interrupted, a faint smile on her lips that he thought he had the option. John's face fell and his eyes hardened as he looked at her. "What? John, the plan was to hunt Cromartie. That's not Cromartie."  
"So?" I asked, surprising myself and them and unsure if I was protesting because I agreed with John or because I was angry at the way Sarah was talking to him.  
"So you just want to walk in there, kick their asses and go for pancakes?" Sarah demanded, sarcasm dripping from her words and stepping closer so that we were almost nose to nose. "It doesn't work like that. We're outnumbered."  
"We're always outnumbered," I shot back and anger suddenly in my throat and making my words come out thick. "Today, tomorrow we're always going to be outnumbered. Does that mean that we don't fight back? Does that just mean we run?" I bit back on anything else I wanted to say before I went too far and breathing hard with the anger and adrenaline that was now racing in my chest. Sarah stared back at me, our eyes nearly level with the height of my boots and tilt of my head, the look in her own reminding me of the first time I met Cameron – scanning me and trying to understand the results.  
"I'm not saying we run," she finally said, voice now quiet and calm though her heavy breathing hinting that she was holding back. "But we need to step back, see what's going on."  
"So we run, in other words," John interrupted and Sarah glanced over at him as if forgetting he was there and he was the one she'd been initially arguing.  
"Can you tell him to get in the car?" She asked, turning her attention over to Cameron who was watching us and curious of the subtleties between all three.  
"It's too dangerous," she confirmed, looking to John to address him. "We should go."  
"It's always too dangerous!" John burst out and almost stomping his foot in frustration. "It's War! War is dangerous!" He looked over to look at me, eyes wild and begging that I'd agree with him that I'd step up again, take his side and prove that he wasn't alone in this. I couldn't move though and only watched him, my heart still pounding loudly in my chest and the rest of me feeling empty. Sarah filled the moment I left silent and walked over to him to slide the strap of the bag from his shoulder and the weight of it dropping into her hand.  
"If you die," she said, stepping back and the bottom of the bag scratching on the pavement. "They win. Either of you." She tossed the last comment of her shoulder at me and turned back before she could see my reaction.  
"How many of those things, those endoskeletons, do you think they can make out of that load of metal in there?" John asked after a moment, jaw working back and forth before he said them and barely helping to hold back his anger. "'Cause that's what we're talking about. It's a truck full of enemy soldiers. What if they're building them here, right now? If I could get my cell phone on into that truck, we can track them by laptop."  
"John Connor, we're going," Sarah stopped him, voice breaking in her frustration and not properly meeting his eyes. "Now." She turned away and stalked over to the driver's seat and pulling open the door to it harder than necessary and the hinges creaking at the sharpness of it. Cameron followed after her on the other side and Sarah threw the bag she'd been holding into the back seat and the weight of it falling off and onto the floor. I looked over at John who hadn't moved, his breathing heavy and eyes watching mine as I saw how determined they were set and knowing what he was thinking before he said it.  
"John ...," I started but he was already turning and slinking back to the wall and climbing on top of the dumpster we'd been standing on earlier and scaling up to the window. I made a move to follow and fall back at the same moment, every muscle tense as I tried to think but only one thought coming to mind that I had been drilled on for the past few months and the one I would live and die by: Protect John. Sucking in a breath and holding back a "fuck" I ran after him and scrambled up onto the dumpster just as his legs disappeared through the opening. I didn't bother to look back to see if they noticed we were gone and heaved myself up onto the ledge and turning so I could slide through it and the roughness of it scratching hard against my stomach. I dropped the sharp distance to the floor and pressed my fingers to the coldness of it to soften my weight and John already sneaking to the side of one of the trucks, only the outline of him visible against the shadows. Crouching I ran after him and startling him as I fell to his side and resisting the urge to smack him upside the head for his own stupidity and then my own for following him on it.  
"What are you doing?" He hissed, his voice somehow louder than if he had simply tried to ask it normally.  
"Keeping you from getting killed," I shot back, resting against the truck and leaning down far enough on it so that the back of my head couldn't be seen through the window. Looking at the positive side of things these men were most likely the type to shoot first then ask questions later. John exhaled loudly and took me by the hand to pull me across the short distance between the truck were against and the next one and pulling me down into the shadows of its side. We waited, my ears pricked for any and every sound before he was off again and pulling me to the back of the truck with the coltan still visible and climbing in over the edge. He held out his hands to help me but I ignored it and climbed up myself, the rough diamond shape pattern on the floor rubbing my hands pink and raw as I did. He crouched around and to the back, fiddling with his cell phone as I kept low in the shadows to watch the door and seeing several men off to the side and not noticing that we had passed. My heart rate had slowed in my chest to even beats that hurt and I dug my fingers into the box I was resting against and feeling splinters under my nails. I wish I had a gun. Any gun, bullets or no bullets just to feel the weight in my hands and the sense of security no matter how hollow. Two of the men suddenly broke away from the group and headed our way with no chance to sneak by them and I shoved John back as he finished and behind the crate so that we'd be hidden from the door. He rested against my back as I waited and their voices louder but more indistinct as my heart rate pounded in my ears and fingers clutched at my waistband to search for something that I had been stupid enough not to bring.  
"Okay, let's roll!" A voice called over top of the men by the door and the shadows along the wall changed as one of them climbed in and pulled the rope from the side down and the door shutting in a roll of metal panels. It clicked and locked at the bottom as the light faded inside the truck and the man slid down against one of the crates and shifting himself so he'd be more comfortable. And _he _had a gun. Fuck.

The sound of the wheels against the pavement was a roaring in my ears and I tried to release the grip of my fingers on a hook cemented into the floor but I couldn't force them to move and had to satisfy myself with that they were cramping and turning white. I licked my lips and tried to calm my heart rate instead but it continued echoing inside my chest and making me feel like I was on low vibrate and the smallest pressure would make me come apart. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I looked over at John beside me who had his face buried into his knees and was slowly rocking back and forth and clenching and unclenching his fingers into his jeans. Stupid. I shouldn't have listened to him. I shouldn't have followed. I should have decked him one right in the face and helped carry him back to the truck but I shouldn't have followed. I rested my head back against the wall and the shaking of it rattling my thoughts loose and making my grip on the hook harder to hold. But I did listen. And I did follow. And now I was here – we both were – and I had to find a way out with preferably the both of us still in one piece. I closed my eyes to lick my lips again and to try and clear my thoughts to a level where I could understand them and not just unintelligible words that in fear I couldn't process. First I had to take out the guard. I couldn't do anything with him sitting there and ready to attack at any sudden movement. I needed to take him out and get the gun before he could use it. Then at least we'd have that. Then we needed the truck to stop or make it stop ourselves. Couldn't drop out with it still moving or the pavement might cause damage than anything they did. I briefly entertained the thought of jumping out of the open back and rolling through the cars and pavement until coming to a stop but the end result more gory then I wanted and shut it down at that point. John lifted his head beside me and loosened his arms from around his knees. I pressed a finger to my lips to try and keep him quiet but he only nodded and rolled forward onto his knees and reaching around the crate we were hiding behind. What ...? I leaned forward to grab at him and pull him back but we went over a bump and whatever he was aiming for fell and clattered loudly against the metal floor. He jerked back so hard he nearly hit me in the face with his elbow and we both tensed in hopes the man hadn't heard it but the sudden lack of his humming suggesting that he did. Fuck! Resisting the urge to shove John head first into the crate I crawled around the other side of it with him following and the man moving from where he sat to investigate the noise and the three of us like a childish game of tag of following the other in a circle and a large object in between to stop us from climbing over and cheating. I stopped at the crate of coltan and fumbled on the ties holding it shut and let the metal locks drop together so I could wedge my fingers between one of the bars that from a distance I at first thought were vials. It was heavy in my hands and I cautiously stood with it and having only seconds to get used to the weight before I made myself turn around the corner and crack it down onto the man's head. He was crouching when I hit him and froze in place for a second as his body registered the blow before his knees gave and he crumbled. I let the breath I hadn't known I was holding in a harsh gasp and John rushed past me to crouch over whatever had dropped as I slowly knelt and started feeling the rough diamond pattern for the gun. I tapped open the magazine and nearly fell back in relief as I saw that it was full and held it irrationally tight in my hands and felt for the first time in hours like I had the higher ground.  
"It's broken," John said and I looked up as he held what had dropped to me and enough of it in one piece so that I could see it was his cell phone but for the screen cracked and several keys missing. I remembered what he said about tracking it and my stomach hardened as it occurred to me now that it was broken and the signal undoubtedly lost. We were on our own.

The vibration of the floor grated my hand numb as I struggled to hold open the bottom of the door with John's hands under it and fumbling at the lock holding it close. His breathing was heavy and he kept grunting in frustration as the wheels bumped or he slipped and the whir of the highway still blurring under the crack and giving no sign of slowly.  
"Do you have it?" I asked, knowing the answer but needing to say something as the cold wind froze my fingers and I tasted an increasingly strong metal taste on my tongue.  
"No, I don't have it," he said angrily and through his teeth, flicking his hair out of his eyes and his tongue pointed to the corner of his mouth. I adjusted how I lay on the floor to try and hold the door open higher but the chain jerked my attempt short and ran the metal down hard on my wrists so tears stung in my eyes and I bit my tongue in replace of holding them back. John grunted again and turned better on his stomach as he continued to struggle and I felt the wheels under us start to slow and the loud beeping as we came to a stop. We froze for a wasted second before I shoved myself back out and away from the door with my wrists red and chaffed and diamond patterns on my stomach. John slid back a second after I did and we both climbed back through opening between the crates and crouching at the back where we had hidden the man and the block of coltan at his side. I pulled the gun out of my waistband and tried to hold it steadily in my hands but the tremble of them throwing off whatever aim I'd have and making me uneasy. I'd shot a man before. I'd killed a man before. It wasn't easy but it wasn't hard and I'd have to do it again if we wanted to get out of here alive and we _needed _that more than any of the men out there would need their lives. I repeated it over and over to myself as voices came outside the walls and around the truck but it was no less true to myself then when I'd started reciting it. The chain rattled loose and let the door slide open so it was suddenly too bright and I crouched further in the shadows as much to hide as to block out the light.  
"Where's the guy?" One of the men asked and I counted my breathing in an attempt to stay calm and still holding the gun tightly in my lap. "Did he bail?"  
"Must have. Guy's been bitching about his money all week," said another voice and I turned to lean my head at a different angle against the crate and ears tensed for if either of them would climb up to investigate. If I got a good shot I could take the first one down but then someone else would hear and they'd come running with more guns. I couldn't take them all down and I wasn't a good enough shot to think that I wouldn't waste any bullets trying. Johns fingers scrambled for mine and I felt them awkwardly twist together hurting but refusing to let go.  
"Let's just finish this and get out of here," the first man said and footsteps saddened as they walked away and I looked up so dizzy with relief that my vision briefly dotted back. John made a move to the door but I held his fingers and jerked him back so we both felt the spasm.  
"Wait," I warned and strained as the footsteps faded and that nothing replaced them. We waited a couple seconds more before I felt like my muscles were ripping inside me from sitting so tense and nodded to John to indicate that he could go. We moved together and carefully edged alongside the crates to the doorway still open and a number of blue barrels lined up together with warnings that they were flammable covering each one. Not as comforting as I had hoped but better than if the men had stayed. John let go of my hand and sprang down from the back before turning to face me and holding out his arms to help me down. Sliding the gun back into my waist band so I wouldn't accidentally shoot him I allowed him to help me and the muscles in my ankles contracting as they hit the solid pavement. I resisted the urge to collapse down and kiss it but instead let John lead me through a line of chairs and to the side in a series of shadows from different pieces of machinery set up. I leaned back against one of them that hummed unpleasantly and pulled out the gun again and checking that it was still loaded though it was more an attempt to calm myself then something with actual logic behind it with. Satisfied I clicked it shut again and held it to my chest, scanning over the walls for any sign of an exit and my thought process shutting down every time I attempted to consider what we'd do when we got out. There was no way of knowing where we are our how far from Sarah and Cameron and even less of how to get back there. I could hot wire a car but that would take time we might not have and concentration I was still having trouble with. I let my head against my knees briefly before lifting it again to continue searching and John carefully standing up in front of me.  
"What are you doing?" I hissed, grabbing for his arm to pull him back but he took my hand instead and made for me to follow him back through the chairs and to the other side of the warehouse. He crouched behind a shelf of supplies and I followed suit just as footsteps echoed on the floor again and I froze mid crouch.  
"I told the guy to just be patient," one of the guys was saying but I couldn't tell which one or even if he was one of the guys before. The gun clicked in my hands as I readied it and knowing it made no difference if it came to me having to kill him or not. "Looks like he bailed."  
"So he's gone then?" One of them asked and I knew without question he was new and I hadn't heard him speak before. His voice was deep and cold and it hollowed out my insides when I thought about the risk of seeing him face to face.  
"Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me," one of the other two explained. "Was bitching about money all week."  
"Then I want to thank you for your service," the man with the colder voice said and I dared a peek over one of the shelves as he raised a gun and shot both of them point blank between the eyes.

They didn't make a noise, the only protest the sound of them crumbling to the pavement and laying there still. I raised my arm to my mouth and bite into it harshly to keep back a scream before lowering it again and teeth marks chewed through my sleeve and into my skin. John was terrifying still beside me and I couldn't even look over to check on him as the Terminator slipped the gun back into his holster and just a calmly as if he'd sent them home without bullets in their brains. He walked away in front of the truck with something rattling in his hands and a loud beep echoing after and the only doors in or out of the warehouse closing and dimming the lights as they crunched shut. Emergency lights flickered on and only pale illuminations of blue at certain points around the room but keeping John and me in the dark. I licked my cracked lips and the gun trembled in my hand as I had a sudden urge to throw it in frustration and panic that it would do less than nothing if I fired it at him but forcing myself to tighten my grip instead. It was our only weapon and I couldn't just let it go. I waited for the footsteps of the Terminator walking back around the truck but it was silent except for our uneven breathing and I dared a glance higher around the shelf to see him stiffly standing in front of the doors and as silent as if he'd been carved from stone.  
"Hey!" A voice yelled behind and I turned so fast I felt my muscles whiplash and pointing my gun at the man who stood there wearing a beige uniform and the shadows leaving him half in the dark and half in eerie light. He stopped when he saw me holding the gun and cautiously reached for belt where he presumably held one of his own.  
"Don't even think about it," I hissed, gritting my teeth to keep them from shaking and glad we stood in the dark so he couldn't see how terrified I really was. His hand froze and he waited, darting his eyes to me then my side as he caught a glimpse of John and saw he was outnumbered.  
"Just take it easy," he warned, hands still frozen but his fingers twitching for any second I dropped my guard and he could draw his gun and fire first. "Whatever you're doing here we can talk it out." I laughed bitterly, the sound more hysterical then I wanted and betraying just how scared I was and him noticing it too. He smirked slightly, sensing the weakness and amused that he had considered me a threat.  
"Give it here, kid," he said and his hands now out to take my gun from me and a mocking caution to his step like he was trying to calm a panicked animal. You don't want to hurt anyone." I dropped the gun to one hand and punched him as hard as I could so I heard bone crack – either mine or his I couldn't tell – and he crumbled to the floor with a short gasp of pain. My hand convulsed like it was on fire and I gasped as I fell back and glancing to see if the Terminator had heard but seeing him standing just as silent as he was a moment ago.  
"What'd you do?" John asked in horror and stepping forward so I could see his face and staring down at the man like he'd lost a friend instead of a man who'd been moments away from blowing our cover. I ignored the question and walked over to his side to kneel at his belt and pulling out the gun he had there. My fingers were tingling and not working properly as I checked the magazine before handing it out to him. He stepped back in terror and looking up to me like he'd blacked out the last few seconds and couldn't remember how I came by a second.  
"Now we each of one," I told him, breathless and shaking so it rattled in my hands and him cautiously reaching out to take it and running his fingers over the lines. I looked back over my shoulder at the Terminator who still hadn't move and crouching down lower and closer to the ground as I looked over around the other side and scanning the walls for any other exit. If there were any I couldn't see them and I fisted my hand inside my shirt and twisted to focus on the pain and not the frustration that made me want to tear my hair out in chunks. John came down at my side again and looked around the corner, squinting at the darkness and licking his lips. He glanced around on the floor for a moment before picking something up and lifting it so in a snatch of light I could briefly see that it was a rock and throwing it across the room and at the Terminator. For a moment my heart stopped as it clattered and rolled along the pavement and I hit John in the arm as inaudibly as I could though his cry as protest wasn't as quiet.  
"Wait," he hissed and we both froze and listened for a moment for the sound of him stirring and coming our way but it was silent and each second that it was tearing me into relief and terrible anticipation.  
"Why isn't he moving?" I asked, the question burning the inside of my mouth in and out and a near giddy desire to run past him to the doors and pound on them until they opened.  
"I think he's on standby or something," John suggested though the sound of it more like a question then an answer. We continued to wait and I started to feel adrenaline build and crack in my legs as the silence persisted and I felt the weight of a false sense of security. He could still move. He could still attack. Someone else could come in and we could still die because you couldn't sit still. I crushed my hands between my knees and started to feel dizzy from squinting in the faded light. John slowly stood next to me and I followed as he did, pulling myself up by the shelves and almost doubling back to the floor with pressure still crippling in my legs. We both glanced around for any other exits but instead my eyes catching on a back office with a phone inside and nailed to the wall.  
"Come on," John whispered, seeing it too and taking my hand to creep back through the aisles of machinery and crates and to where various switchboards lit up and dotting the floor with pinpoints of red light. He ducked into the office with me after him and with a trembling hand reached out for the phone and pulled it off the hook and even I could hear the dial tone of a connection. We both exhaled at the same time, almost delirious with relief and he dropped my hand to start turning the dial and a grin uncertain on his lips. I tucked my hands under my arms to keep from shaking and looked back out through the doorway and at the Terminator, something more eerie about the way he hadn't moved and almost wishing that he would if only to give me something to focus on.  
"Mom?" John asked into the phone, his voice low and hopeful and glancing up to me with that same grin and his shoulders sagging in relief. "Mom ... yeah. Look ... listen ... yeah she's fine too." He glanced up at me to make sure it wasn't a lie and I nodded so he'd think he wasn't. "He's blocking the door. It's like he's frozen." He glanced through the doorway to check that he hadn't moved and I looked back to assure myself as well. "Yeah, when the door shut, it's like he went to sleep or something," He entwined his hands in the cord and anxiously wrapped it between his fingers. "The door ... that put him on standby." He snuck a grin at me, proud that he was right. "Yeah, we run." His voice had gone quiet and with fingers tightly holding the phone he hung it up and held the base of it for a moment and breathing heavy.  
"John?" I asked, reaching out a hand to his back but pulling back as he straightened before I could touch him.  
"We have to open that door," he said, each word like a weight on his tongue and no lighter in the air after he said them. I nodded, registering but not hearing and knowing that whatever he said there was some kind of action behind it and one I wouldn't like.

The back of the Terminator loomed in front of me and I nervously held the gun out between my hands as I surveyed him, finger tight on the trigger if he moved and knowing that it would probably do less than nothing if I fired. John had his own gun back in his hands though less willing to use it and the shadow of it long at his side. He carefully walked around on the other side of him and to the switch by the door while I carefully raised the gun to the back of the Terminators head and guessing that if I had to take a shot it would my best chance. John pressed at the switch frantically and turned back with panicked eyes as the doors didn't open and silently begging me to tell him what to do next. I crept over to join him – with no idea what to actually do when I got there – and freezing when something glittered on the Terminators neck and reminding me of before and the rattle in his hands.  
"Key," I mouthed at John and he turned to look over at him and eyes widening as he registered what that meant. He looked back at me and rapidly shook his so I knew what he thought of it. Fear making me selfish I held out my fist to him and after a second of staring it he held out his own and in the universal acknowledgment of rock – paper – scissors shook both of our fists three times until his came up paper and mine came out rock. Fuck. Lower my arm and tucking my gun into the back of my jeans I cautiously walked around the Terminator and jolting to a stop when I finally met his eyes. His didn't register mine though and only continued to stare at the door, dead to the world but able to wake at a seconds notice if I made the wrong move. I took a deep breath that I took no oxygen from and stepped closer and up on my tip toes for the chain around his neck. I heard John suck in his breath behind me and stuttered to a stop wishing he hadn't. Closing my eyes and licking my lips I opened them again and started to lift the chain from around his neck and over his cheeks, ears and forehead. It brushed through his hair and the moment the back of it touched air I jerked it off away from him and fell back several steps with my heart pounding so fast I felt sick. I watched him for any sign that I disrupted him and finding none rushed over to the switch and slid the key into the keyhole. It caught from being pushed to hard and I jiggled it slightly until it clicked and turned it so the alarm went off and the sound tearing at my eardrums with how close I was to its source and how relieved I was that it was almost over.  
"Come on," John yelled over the blaring and pulled me away from the door and back to the truck with the coltan in the back. He opened the side door and crawled in, scrambling at the seats for the keys and his fingers fumbling as he looked. The doors of the warehouse started to part and light streaming in that stung my eyes and made them water. I climbed in after him and slid my fingers between the cushions before finding something jagged and pulling out the set of keys creased together and handing them to him. He took the ring holding them together and started to flip them key by key over his finger and testing each one before the engine groaned and roared to life. The door opened next to us and I turned with the gun in my hands and pointing it at Sarah's face as she froze in the frame and waiting for me to lower it.  
"Come on," John ground out between his teeth and fumbling at the gears. Metal against metal echoed over the engine and I looked up at the doorway to see that the Terminator was gone and feeling panicked that I couldn't see where he was.  
"I thought you said you could drive," Sarah calmly pointed out and shutting the door behind her and acting as if this was his first driving lesson and we had all the time in the world.  
"It's jammed or something," John protested and pressing down on the clutch and becoming more nervous with every second it didn't do anything. The sound of metal on metal was closer this time outside and I looked behind me out of habit but only saw the back wall of the seat and no help to me whatsoever.  
"If you want to be a hero, you're have to learn out to drive stick," Sarah said, patience snapping and leaning over me so her elbow was in my lap and her hair in my face. I leaned back as she did something I couldn't see with the gears and the truck finally started moving and crunching down the pavement. A shape stepped in front of the windshield and the truck stopped and wheels protested as the Terminator blocked it with his boots scrapping against the floor and John continuing to try and gun it. Smoke billowed from around the windows and I grabbed the gun Sarah had rested against the seat and crawled out from under her to lean out the window and point the barrel at his face. Light sparked off the end of it as it fired and metal dinged as his head went back and pain recoiled in my arm. Son of a ... John floored it again and this time the Terminator fell and crunched under the wheels as I pulled myself back into the seat and wincing at the tenderness in my arm and what I assumed the soon pretty spectacular bruise. Cameron walked up calmly in pace of the window and to the switch as we drove past and the alarms blared again to signal that the doors were closing. John slowed it to a stop to wait for her and the brightness outside making everything too dark and painful before it slowly started to adjust and the door beside me opened and Cameron slid in to join us and not enough room for all four of us at once.  
"Let's go," she said simply and not bothering to pull on a seat belt.  
"But can he get out?" John asked, fingers gripping the steering wheel and going white from how tight he held them. Cameron didn't answer, only held up the key I lifted from his neck and the sight of it the best thing that had happened to me all day.

The dust kicked up behind the truck as it rolled down the dirtied path and I pulled my injured arm closer to my chest and feeling it ache as my other hand held the gun at my side. The truck started to pick up speed as it got closer to the edge of the cliff and I saw the shape of Cameron climbing out of its side and on top before carefully walking to the end of it and stepping off right before it plunged off and over the edge. Smoke billowed up from where it disappeared and I heard the distant crash as it hit the water and not enough to the fall that I could see the spray of water come up. Movies often got that wrong and there was something unsettling about me knowing the difference. I leaned back against the front of the army jeep and massaging my fingers into my forearm to try and work some good feeling into it but only making it more sore and dropping my attempt instead. The wind picked up as Cameron turned back to walk towards us and her hair billowing around her shoulders but no sign to her face or gestures to suggest that it bothered her or even if she noticed. John stepped up beside me and glanced over to rest his eyes on my injured arm, silently asking me if I was okay. I smiled faintly at him to show I was, letting my arm fall to my side so I could reach out and take his hand and entwining his fingers through my own. He froze for a moment, surprised that I had taken it before tightening his grip and smiling down at it and missing the grimace on my lips as the action pulled at my muscles but refusing to let go all the same.

I pulled my arm loose of my jacket and wincing as it hurt to do so and turning it back and forth in front of the mirror and taking note of the purple and green bruised that climbed its way up into my shoulder. I examined it carefully and the look on my face as I moved it before letting the other sleeve of my jacket fall and crumbling at my feet. Goosebumps came up under my skin as I stood in my white tank top and the marks still over my wrists from where the door had crashed down on them. I looked myself up and down for a moment and took note of everything I saw whether I liked it or not and wondering if there was any difference from this morning when I'd looked in the mirror. Besides the bruises I couldn't see any and even if I did I hadn't looked at myself the way I did now and even if I did I'd have seen nothing of note to compare it to. I bent down to pick up my jacket and throwing it over my shoulder as I opened the bathroom door and Sarah stepped back from the entrance.  
"Uh sorry I was ...," she stumbled slightly on her words and brushed back a strand of hair and glanced away from me and then back as if gathering her bearings and wanting them found before I could look at her closer. "I just ... just wanted to see if you were okay." She looked me in the eyes as she said it but dropped her gaze to my arm at the last minute as if changing her concern and how personal it was to ask.  
"Oh, yeah it's fine," I said, looking down at it and suddenly self conscious so I slid my jacket over to cover it. "Just a bruise." She nodded and pursed her lips together as if looking for something else to find and nothing to suggest coming to mind. I waited for it anyway and pretended I didn't know why but the answer so obvious that I cringed at the thought of her hearing it. Because it was nice. Because it was comforting to have an awkward silence with someone and so much underneath it to make it so. Because it was like what I'd remembered having a mom was like and I saw her as the only replacement I'd ever get. The thought hurt more then I meant it to and I suddenly wanted to be alone and away from her and lock myself in my room where I could curl up in a ball and bury everything until I felt hollow again.  
"Well I better get to bed ... long day," I said it like a joke and smiled so she'd recognize it as such and catching on she smiled as well though it came off as forced as mine.  
"Of course well ... have a good sleep," she nodded as a dismissal and I turned to walk around her and over the floorboards so they creaked under me and making each step seem longer then it was.  
"John ...," she said it hesitantly and I froze with my fingers on my door frame to wait for her and see if she wanted to continue or backspace to cover it up and after a moment looked over my shoulder to see her still standing there and tears faint in her eyes. She took a deep breath and tried to smile through them but I could still see them there.  
"John said you saved his life today," she tried again and her smile more sincere. "Multiple times. I just ... I just wanted to thank you." She nodded to let me know she finished and a million possible answers running through my thoughts. I had to, his life is more important than mine, I'm his future wife, I made a vow to protect him, he needed saving or he'd be dead twice by now ... over and over until they became a cycle in my head that on each turn made less and less sense but with one thing out of all of them standing out: I care about him. And I would never let anything hurt him.  
"You're welcome," I said simply and with her smile turned my back to her and walked into my room and the door closing behind me with a click.


	5. Queen's Gambit

I pulled down the sleeve of my shirt so the front of it slipped and revealed the curve of my bra clad breast. I turned in the early morning light for a better look at the bruise and the color of it shifting from green to purple depending on which side I looked at it from where the shadows were more prominent. It had crept up my arm and into my shoulder so the skin looked infected and was a continuous reminder of my near death experience and that the effects of it lived on long after it was experienced. I shrugged my sleeve back up to hide it and pulled it this way and that so it was covered and if I avoided touching it I could pretend it was not there. I turned to look in the mirror again, searching for any other details that could give me away and the illusion that I was flesh and blood and could be killed if someone had a mind to do so. Or something. I swallowed down the coldness of the thought and tried to smile to get the feel of it before it was tested and graded on its success. Machines. Skynet. Nuclear War. The Future. John Connor. Amanda Connor. Me. There. Easy.

"We have a problem," Sarah said as I walked in and I took their lack of attention towards it as a sign that it wasn't about me and that I had come in mid conversation. "Andy Goode rebuilt his chess computer."  
"The Turk," John said, surmising more than asking and walking over to the sink to slide in his dishes with subtle clinks of glass against glass. "But you napalmed it."  
"Apparently he spent every minute since then in a coffee shop in Van Nuys rewriting the code from memory," Sarah answered, in disbelief even as she said it and glancing over her shoulder to look at me and John doing the same. I smiled in greeting with my fingers in habit going to my arm as Sarah turned back disinterested and John's lingered longer than necessary.  
"Good code is like a good song in your head," John explained, grounding himself again and awkwardly staring at the tile that the tip of his shoes scratched at aimlessly. "It's gotta come out."  
"Except this song might just blow up the world," I said, walking to the fridge for the opened carton of milk and taking a deep sip so it left a stain of cold white over my lips and threatened shavings of cardboard that had been rusted clean from too much use. Sarah made a sound of displeasure deep in her throat and pointedly set a glass down in front of me to use but the sentiment – or reprimand – of it lost in the fact that I was done.  
"You should have killed him when you had the chance," Cameron piped up helpfully from the table, her head bent over a piece of work and moving back and forth over it with calculated steps that I had grown accustomed to seeing in her and yet still felt uncertain in how comfortable I was with them.  
"And I'm surprised it's taken you this long to bring it up," Sarah said, forcing the words out behind her teeth and taking back the unused glass to put it in the cupboard as John gestured to my upper lip where the remains of my milk moustache still lingered.  
"I'm busy doing John's homework," Cameron excused and I took the distraction of the glare in John's direction to wipe at my mouth with my sleeve and then in turn on the side of my jeans. John in defeat walked back to the table to retrieve his homework with Cameron looking up in surprise that he'd done so and not sure what to do in the absence of it.  
"Andy entered it into a tournament," Sarah continued, going to walk behind me and on my other side so she could watch the two of us for misbehaviour and be sure to correct it before it went to far.  
"Computer versus human?" I asked, leaning my elbows on the table to in turn rest on them which safely appeared to fly under her radar.  
"Computer versus computer," she answered, barely glancing at me and then back to John so I could hear her words of "Thanks" in my thoughts and the weight of them that seemed to rest more heavily on me then they did on her.  
"It's the new thing," John shrugged, more knowledge about the subject then either of us and eager to inform. "These programs are too smart and powerful to play people anymore."  
"It gets better the more we talk about it," Sarah sarcastically said with a tight smile before taking a deep breath to signify the end of discussion. "You're going to school. Both of you." To this she allowed a longer glance in my direction if only to define that it was me that she was talking to. "You two and Tin Miss can meet me there later."  
"Mom, it's chess," John smirked with an air of his own reprimand that almost made me smile. "You don't know anything about chess."  
"I know a bit about Andy," she assured him, pressing her knuckles against the table so I could hear the distinct cracks. "Besides you can't be absent. Absent gets you on their radar."  
"Okay, I get it," he sighed, defeat and knowing the futility of it before he'd started. "Can I have some money for lunch?" Without missing a beat on the question Sarah handed him the bagged contents from the table and walked away from us and the kitchen with the sound of her boots clicking on the wood. John unrolled the top of the bag to peer inside with the tightened set of his jaw in distaste so when he looked up at me it was to silently ask for my remedy in the matter. Having lived on worse or less then what had probably been offered I shrugged to show he was on his own before taking another gulp from the milk carton.

I skated my pencil across the clean space of my page and back again to draw the almost invisible shape of what was supposed to be a star but lacked any artistic skills to make the distinction. The drone of the TV went on over the scratches of my pencil and created background where I repeated the words over and over in my head: Machines. Skynet. Nuclear War. The Future. John Connor. Amanda Connor. Me. Me. Amanda Connor. John Connor. The Future. Nuclear War. Skynet. Machines. The same words thought backwards and the weight of them out of balance so I heard the Machines harsher and then softer until it was my name. My name. Amanda Reid. Amanda Connor. Mandy. Me. My own. Except it wasn't my name. It had been my mother's name and now it would be my husbands and assigned to a destiny I had no choice in and a future that started in the steps made before I was born. I let my breath out slowly and sank deeper in my chair so the light through the blinds faded over my desk and illuminated over my fingers where tiny scars had torn themselves into the skin from any various incident over the past few weeks that I hadn't bothered to take more notice of. The girl next to me was leaning over my paperwork and making urgent notes as the narrator continued with his speech and the occasional word coming into focus long enough for me to guess the theme of the program. World War II and the Atomic Bomb. How appropriate in the due chance that the Universe worked in terms of irony. Black and white images came one after the other as the explosion was shown so even the clouds blew back in the force and then the results that followed with the always continuous droning voice of the narrator who would take his check at the end of the day and never again cast his thoughts back almost seventy years ago and how it would repeat itself again in four years from now. He didn't have to think of that. The girl next to me didn't have to think about that. I did. Except it wasn't in me to think it was to act and sitting and waiting for it wasn't an action as much as the absence of it that felt all of a sudden like a heavy weight on my chest that stretched and pressed so I felt too thin. I sat up higher in my chair to try and ease it and bury it again but it was being played with by the voice and pictures of the patients and destruction and the quote from the man himself "I have become death. The destroyer of worlds." I pushed back from my desk and to the doorway at the back of the room before anyone else could register and the slam of the door shut behind me silencing the sounds and the pressure that tore and broke.

The cold water ran in rivets down my neck and back and I closed my eyes as the goosebumps came up to turn the suffocation into cold which was something I could more easily deal with and reconcile with a solution. I turned off the tap and spit out the water that had fallen into my mouth before wiping away the droplets so the sink dripped with them and one by one formed into a greater stream that funnelled down the drain. I stood up so I could see my reflection in the mirror and tentatively raised my sleeve so I could see the bruise again and in this light more purple then green and more harsh then faded. I pressed my fingers along it and held back on the wince as my skin was too tender. It still hurt. I was still flesh and blood. Still able to be hurt and then killed. Still human and not machine. I dropped my sleeve again and straightened it so it felt past my waist and almost to my knees with Sarah's miscalculation of my size. But then again I'd worn worse and less. I shook the rest of the water from my hands and pushed open the bathroom door as a group of girls pushed in past me chattering and laughing with barely a glance in my direction to acknowledge that I stood there. I let the door close behind me and walked back down the empty hall and to the classroom where I'd probably have to excuse my abrupt departure with the easy answer of woman troubles that was usually enough to scare off any man and garner sympathy from any woman. _That _at least was something I knew. I turned down another hall to make the long way back when I paused at the end of it where the shrine to Jordan had been set up and the flowers and cards decorating underneath the window and across the tiles to the lockers. My footsteps seemed even louder as I approached it and touched one of the bouquets with my foot so it rocked in the gesture and obscured her face in one of the photographs. I knelt to move it back like brushing someone's hair back from their eyes and took in the image of her as if I had only seen her as a child and didn't know her as an adult. She was smiling. Happy. Unrecognisable. Not the girl who stood tearfully up on the roof by the edge or the splatter of blood on the pavement that I saw whenever I closed my eyes. Even now I could see it spreading over the photos and flowers so they shrivelled and shrunk and made the hall smaller and darker then the image they'd tried to make.  
"Did you know her?" A quiet voice asked and I looked over at my shoulder to a small girl standing just behind me while worrying her fingernail back and forth between her teeth. I looked back from the picture and stood again, my knees protesting in the change of stance.  
"No. No, I didn't," I said and stepped back so I could see it in whole the array of condolences that no one would be saying if she'd been alive and there to hear them.  
"Neither did I," she admitted, hugging her chest so she appeared even smaller and not sure where to rest her eyes so they skipped from sentiment to sentiment and back again. "I don't think anyone did ... really." I nodded understanding but not really hearing so I could still see the spray of blood in my thoughts and reminding myself that there was all it was. In my thoughts. In my head. In a memory I had no business bringing up and would be better held underneath until it drowned and did not come back up.  
"Well ... see yeah," she said with a small wave and retreated back down the hall so her footsteps echoed in the sheer emptiness of it. I watched her for a moment until she ducked into one of the classes and looking back over the shrine which now looked as it should but with an even more dangerous thought under the current: Did they hold one for Ally when she died? Did they have one for me when they thought I had? Or had we been too obscure and unnoticed to warrant one or retrospect not enough? It was a dangerous thought and an unwarranted one and I turned my back on what encouraged it and walked back to class with my own footsteps echoing.

"Hey," John greeted, coming up behind me and to the side so he could lean against the wall next to me and a casual but flirtatious air to the way he performed it. Or so he imagined.  
"Hey," I said, turning to face him and holding out the bag of popcorn for him to take a handful and tempted to pull it back before he could in thought that it could either encourage a romantic wrestle or allow me the chance to have more.  
"Thanks," he said as he took the offering and looked around the crowded room as he ate so I followed his gaze to strike up conversation on what he noticed.  
"I didn't get to see much of you in school today," he observed, finishing his handful so I could tilt the bag to give him more and taking it as I offered.  
"Yeah, sorry I was kind of distracted," I shrugged, lying in the weakness in the shape of opening up to him and revealing something that he could pick up on and ask about. He turned as I thought he might in concern and I had to keep my attention focused otherwise to avoid the tightening lines along his neck and the half thought of running my fingers over them.  
"Want to talk about it?" He asked, the invitation there and dangling but the sudden loss of desire to take it. I looked around the room at the booths and people moving between them and saw Cameron at one a couple feet away mimicking the moves of one of the robots on display and fascinated but curious that they matched almost perfectly.  
"We should probably meet up with Sarah," I said, going back on my introduction with how little a lie it actually was and how delicate it was to admit to that. I looked to him with the encouraging words and he slowly nodded, agreeing but not sure why.  
"I think she's watching the tournament," he said, jerking his head back through the double doors to the auditorium for me to follow. I did on his heels and sized up anyone who came past or close to calculate the risk of each one and my lack of weapons besides the popcorn as Sarah had made it clear she didn't like the idea of me frequently carrying a gun. He held open the door for me and it slammed shut with a distinct click as my eyes adjusted to the dimmed light and the stage illuminated with the two teams in concentration and the red numbers of a clock ticking down above their heads. He reached back his hand to lead me and I followed it reluctantly until he slid down one of the aisles where Sarah sat alone and with rapt attention on the game.  
"Do you know how many grant masters are here?" He asked in a way of greeting before taking his seat next to her so I could take the next one over. "How's Andy doing?"  
"Well, that depends on what your plans are for Andy," she sighed, sitting lower in her seat and resting her feet up on the one in front of her. "On the one hand, he's in the final round, on the other hand ... the winner gets a military contract."  
"Military? Are you serious?" John asked, eyebrows drawn back in surprise and letting his breath out all at once. "What do we do?"  
"Cheer very hard for the Japanese," she urged, straightening again and glancing at the exit doors by the stage. "...Or Cameron will kill him." As if on cue she stepped out with that ominous note and standing perfectly still to watch the game and tensed for her next action.  
"Popcorn?" I asked, offering the bag to Sarah to break the silence and the tense way she flinched whenever Andy won a point. She recoiled at the sight of the bag and raised her eyebrows upon recognizing it.  
"Where on earth did you get popcorn?" She asked, turning to raise her eyes to me and the change of focus allowing her the brief chance to relax. I took that as a no and shrugged in my own answer before pulling it back. More for me.  
"...Leaving their queen hanging on B6 square. The American computer calculating the response." The announcer droned with the effect of the World War II video. Maybe they were related or something.  
"What just happened?" Sarah asked, confused and leaning closer to John for the answer.  
"The bishop on C5 totally hammered him. Black's in total zugzwang," John explained, though to which of us he thought would understand it was another question.  
"Translation?" I asked, taking another hand of my popcorn and speaking through a full mouth that John didn't mind but Sarah took note of with reproach.  
"The Japanese just lost their queen," he said with an indulgent smile and I resisted the urge to smack him with the subtle offense to it. "They're in big trouble."  
"Andy's going to win," Sarah said quietly, turning back to the game and swallowing hard with the weight of it.  
"The Japanese desperately hoping for counter-play after the disastrous loss of their queen," the announcer continued, drawing no excitement from her tone but from what I could see over the heads of those in front of me. The players huddled together in turn as they considered their next move and starting again with the woman narrating over the whole. "... Rook to C2. Checkmate." The man on Andy's team surrendered his King to the board and the breath I hadn't known I was holding came out and I felt dizzy at the release. He lost. The Japanese won.  
"It's over. Andy lost," John told us as we guessed the same and I turned back to my bag of popcorn to find it empty and mourned that I had offered him some.  
"But the other team ...," Sarah tried, confused and standing as everyone else did in a rush.  
"They didn't lose their queen, they sacrificed it," John explained, stepping down the stairs and heavy on each one so he jolted from side to side. "Just like Byrne – Fischer all over again." Sarah and I both turned to him with raised eyebrows and for once agreeing on our misunderstanding. "Byrne – Fischer, 1956?" He turned between one of us, hoping we'd understand but with me only wishing that I had more popcorn. "Never mind. The point is ..."  
"The Turk fell for the trap?" Sarah asked, picking up on the more fundamental piece.  
"It's like it just ... choked," he shrugged as we made it to the ground level and Cameron came over to join us. "So, now what? We go after them now?"  
"Their names weren't in the safe house," I said, crumbling up the empty bag and tossing it at the garbage can that rested by the entrance.  
"Andy's was," Sarah continued, going off of my thought.  
"Nobody's going to want it now," John said solemnly as the man himself walked across the stage with his partner and the two of them arguing so anger was evident but no words to suggest in what way. "That thing's kind of crazy."  
"He could still be a threat," Cameron said, always helpful and her eyes locked with Sarah's. "It could still become Skynet."  
"It could also become pong," Sarah replied in dark humor.  
"What are you going to do?" John asked, as always knowing it led back to what Sarah would do and how well we would follow in those footsteps.  
"I don't know," she shrugged, quiet in her voice and movements where I'd gotten used to so much sound. "Maybe I'll just sit him down and tell him everything." She almost laughed at the idea of it but in the moment it went silent with everything else and she turned to walk away with the suggestion still too heavy to be funny.

I turned the worn covers of the books over in the box and blew the dust off of one of them so it crystallized in the lamplight before fading back into the reality of just being mold and dead skin cells. I flipped open the pages so they cracked and the lines blurred before tossing it in with the rest. So many books. So little time. And even less time to mourn over it. I went over the pile I'd set aside before picking out the bottom one with a red cover and the title written in Latin. I stood up to walk back over to my bed and the floorboards creaking with each step in mourning of the one before it and welcoming to the one after. I curled in under the covers and cracked the spine so I could read over the words though I understood none of them. It was comforting though. That someone had written it in hopes that someone would read it and that another one kept it in hopes of doing so again. Would we have books in the future? Probably not. They'd all have been destroyed or burned for fuel or senseless violence and not enough time besides to enjoy the past time. They probably wouldn't have popcorn either. Or history class. Or shrines in school hallways or bathroom mirrors or clean water. We wouldn't have a lot of things. But mourning them wouldn't bring them back and certainly wouldn't keep them here. I exhaled deeply and slid deeper into my covers and replaying the chess game in my head with the rules I never really understood but the basics John had tried to explain. The pawns move one space and are the weakest piece. They go first. The Knights move in an L and the Rooks go straight. The King was the most valuable piece but the Queen was the most powerful. I stayed on that moment for a second and let it apply where I'd usually left metaphor absent. The King stood surrounded for the game and protected for the enemy by those who would die for him. Including the Queen. Especially the Queen. John was the King. And like the Queen I would fight and die for him. Until all the other pieces were done and he was alone. And then he would die too.

"That was way too easy. LAPD's firewall really blows," John said, walking in with his laptop resting on his arm and the cereal in my bowl going soggy as I waited.  
"Show me what you found," Sarah said, stepping in beside him before he could join me so he had to rest his laptop on the counter and I had to go to him. From between the shoulders of John and Sarah I could see what was displayed on the screen in several different windows of green print and then an image of an attractive man in his mid thirties with pictures of barcode tattoos underneath and beside.  
"Okay. No name, but he's got this tattoo on his arm," he said, backing up more so we could see and gesturing to the screen so we knew what for.  
"He's one of them," Sarah said quietly and looking up at Cameron for her confirmation.  
"That's a tattoo from a Skynet work camp," Cameron said, taking on where she was urged as Sarah left the room. "He's a resistance fighter."  
"From the future?" John asked as he relinquished control of the laptop and I leaned over to scan the nonsensical details in letters and numbers. "Like the three guys from the safe house?"  
"He was the fourth," she nodded.  
"Then you know him. In the future," John said, phrased as a question but not coming out as such.  
"So do you. He's your most loyal soldier," she told him, but looking at me as she said it.

I weaved in between the awkwardly spaced tables through the courtyard and edged John out of the line of fire of a pair of legs sticking out and kicked them aside to the protests of those they belonged to.  
"I'm not going to die tripping over a pair of legs," he laughed, taking humor from my concern and seating himself finally at one of the tables while laying out his textbooks and papers and taking turns holding them down.  
"You could," Cameron said, backing up my action and sitting down beside him. "Depending on how heavy the legs and from where you land after tripping on them. If they're out just by a cliff and you go over ..."  
"Yes. Thank you," John interrupted and flipping through the pages with his lunch ignored and to the side. I opened up my own and to the turkey sandwich that I guessed to have been made by John and the empty plastic glass that I supposed was from Sarah.  
"What are you doing?" Cameron asked John as I turned over the glass and wondered if this was her unfunny way of a joke.  
"Math," John sighed, tapping his pencil against the page as if in hopes it would help with the answer.  
"I already did your homework," she reminded him, a breeze ruffling her hair over her shoulders and so several of them grazed my arm.  
"Yeah, I know, but I still have to take the test," he said with a disbelieving scoff and reminding me of a polite concern that I didn't know this and that we had the same class. "I need to know this stuff."  
"Then why did you ask me to do it?" She wondered, head tilted and trying to understand the piece of the puzzle she was missing. John's shoulders sagged and he squinted into the crowd sitting around him for a moment as he tried to turn over the words so they lay right side up.  
"Because maybe it's kind of hard to concentrate on geometry when people keep dying around you," he explained, making eye contact with her in hopes of finding some understanding but whatever science had masked the functions in her eyes left out that detail and he found them empty. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" He laughed bitterly, the irony of explaining to a machine what it meant to mourn someone.  
"You're grieving," she guessed, looking to me with the question of whether or not she'd gotten it right. I nodded, unravelling the saran wrap of my sandwich and not sure what to do with the plastic cup.  
"Grieving? How do you know what grieving is?" John asked, almost harshly skeptical.  
"I read all the notes," she said like it was an answer and that it made no difference either way.  
"Cameron Baum?" A girl asked next to John and I tensed at the proximity. "Mr. Harris wants to talk to you." She held out a piece of paper that Cameron took and in simplistic steps added to the books that she held to take with her as she stood up from the table and through the others back to the doors of the school.  
"What notes?" I asked, turning back to John who had returned to his homework and the exasperated look on his face suggesting that it was in vain.  
"From Jordan's shrine," he sighed, opening another book and flipping through the pages. He went quiet as he concentrated and I turned the sandwich over in my hands with the memory of staining blood and suddenly losing my appetite.

I closed the door of my locker and locked it with a click of metal that dimmed in the noise of everyone else and the dozens of other lockers that closed and locked as if to compete from my own. I shrugged my bag over my shoulder as I walked down the hall and pointedly ignoring the shrine which seemed to have grown since I last saw it. A group of boys older than me made the point to elbow me as I passed and felt the pain in my breast as their aim met its target. They laughed at their success and I counted it pitiful that they gained amusement from it when in four or so years they would be dead from a war or prisoners because of it. The dim light of the hall gave way to the blinding light of outside and I caught sight of Cameron walking towards me with her hand on the bag slung over her shoulder in attempts to mirror my own actions and taking the hint that it was less mechanic to do so.  
"How'd it go with Mr. Harris?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest as she stopped in front of me before continuing her steps in unison to mine.  
"He wanted to know about Jordan," she said shortly, arm stiff at her side and as if remembering pointedly swinging it so it hit a boy walking past who gripped his stomach and groaned at the impact. "He wanted to know if I was upset."  
"And ... are you?" I asked, uneasy with the question by already knowing the answer but enough social convention telling me that it had to be asked whether I wanted the answer to it or not.  
"No. I'm not upset," she replied, stopping next to John who was standing next to another kid and who I instantly sized up with no obvious hint of a threat.  
"Mom's here," she said plainly and the kid looked over before doing a double take at seeing us.  
"Whoa ... Hi. I'm Morris," He said, holding out a hand to me that I cautiously shook before he turned it towards Cameron. "Your brothers new best friend."  
"Cameron," she said politely, dropping her hand and his fingers clenching from the tightness.  
"Nice grip," he congratulated, before glancing over at me to look me up and down and specific attention paid to my breasts. John took that as a sign to leave though and took me by the arm to lead me away though I loosened it just enough that I wasn't following but enough that we still touched.  
"Field trip," Sarah explained as we approached, arm over the back of the front seat and John's hand instantly reaching for the passenger door.  
"I call shotgun," he said, sliding in as Cameron opened the back door and held it out for me.  
"I call 9 – millimeter," she said in reply and making me laugh as she climbed in after me.

The wheels of the jeep roared down the highway as Sarah picked up speed and the appearance of the back of the prison transport becoming more detailed as we got closer. I gripped my fingers into the seat in front of me as my hair blew over my face and into my eyes and tried to steady myself and my hand on the seatbelt to release it at a seconds notice if needed. John climbed back from the front seat and into the back so he half landed on top of me and elbows and knees went where they shouldn't be.  
"Ouch. Sorry," he said as he tried to climb off of me so Cameron could take his place in front before climbing through the roof entirely and onto the back of the truck. She held onto the sides of it as Sarah pulled back and there was another collision of body parts that allowed the two of us to become more accustomed to one another which would probably be more helpful in the future. Cameron climbed over the top and disappeared from view as the truck suddenly stopped with a screech and Sarah pulled ahead in front of them before stopping on an angle. She was out of the car in a second and I unbuckled my seat belt to climb into the front where the cushion was still warm from where she sat.  
"Drop it! Now! Run!" She was yelling but I could hear to as I closed the door to the driver seat and my hands on the steering wheel for whatever came next. "Take the Jeep!" She yelled again and I took enough of it from context to suppose she meant me. John climbed in beside me and grunted as he lost his balance and almost went head first as he tripped. I shifted the car into drive and hit the gas so we moved at a jolt with gunfire following us so I shoved John's head down and wished that Sarah had left me a gun or at least told me where to find one.  
"They're not firing at us," he yelled, cautiously lifting his head and looking behind us. I took my eyes off the road for a second to look in the rear view mirror as the truck barrelled down behind us with the drive of it haphazardly going from side to side with Sarah barely visible in the front trying to get control.  
"Not exactly comforting," I yelled back, turning down another street and a loud honking telling me that the turn was more likely than not illegal.  
"Have you ever driven before?" He asked, pinning himself to the door as we made another sharp turn and gripping whatever was close enough to hold so his knuckles turned white.  
"Yeah, some," I shrugged, leaving off the unsaid "Yeah, not really" that was implied. Cars screeched behind us with metal against metal and I didn't dare look back this time to see what was going on. Get John somewhere safe. If nothing else keep John safe. And try not to kill him with my "driving skills." We went down another street and John was nearly thrown head first this time as I avoided hitting a van. I caught his eye staring at me in horror and couldn't stop myself in the moment from laughing.  
"I'm still better then you," I said and soon he was laughing as well those his knuckles were still white and his weight too stiff in his seat. We turned again and I caught sight of the truck in front of us slowing to a stop and did the same to involve a collision before opening the door and climbing out of my seat. John came out on the other side and I saw his legs trembling as he clutched the edge of the truck and looking like he never wanted to step in a vehicle again – though maybe only if I was the one behind the wheel. I jogged over to meet them – Sarah and the man – and did a double take as I saw the man freeze and stare at me as if he were seeing a memory and needed to remind himself if it were real or imagined.  
"Let's go," Sarah called, shocking him out of his revere and me into jogging back.  
"Where's Cameron?" John asked, looking over them to see she was missing as I opened the front door and thought better of me being behind it.  
"Leave her, let's go," the man urged, his voice not unpleasantly rough before holding him back as John fought and a break of metal interrupting the struggle. Cameron crashed out of the back of the truck as another Terminator joined her and kicking her to the ground where she strained to get up. Spotting metal I grabbed the gun that was on the floor of the front seat and fired at the back of his head so sparks flew off of it and my hands hurt from gripping it too hard. The Terminator turned so his eyes glowed red and I saw that unquestioning order in them that I was to be killed if not needed to get John and then killed again if that purpose was fulfilled. He lifted something and I had a split second to see what it was before someone screamed "No!" and I was shoved to the ground so hard the pavement skilled my arms and legs and I tasted blood bitter on my tongue. Another gunshot rang out and then a groan of pain as I raised myself on skinned elbows and saw the man collapsed with his hands pressed to his bloodying chest.  
"Bring me the toolbox!" Cameron was yelling and John ran past me to get to her and I scrambled up on my hands and knees to the man to press my hands to his chest to try and hold it in and together even as the blood dripped over my fingers and the memory that came with it almost making me sick.

He grunted harshly in pain, the weight of his arm over my shoulders weighing me down as Sarah swept the boxes off of counter and helped me and John both as we lifted him up onto it as blood dripped from his side and pitter patted on the tile like droplets of macabre rain.  
"Do something! We have to help him!" Sarah urged as I grabbed a dish towel and pressed it to his side, for a moment considering whether or not it was clean before it became soaked through with red and the question became moot. Cameron came on my other side and the man convulsed as I tried to hold him.  
"Don't let that thing touch me," he demanded, his eyes unfocused and yet somehow resting on me as if I was the one he was talking to and blood dripping down his chin with the words.  
"We have to stop your bleeding," Sarah told him, gathering towels and cloths together to replace mine and my fingers shaking as I held them down.  
"Get away from me," he called again, trying to sit up with the blood now in the scruff of his cheeks and neck, crusting as it dried.  
"Please don't move," Cameron said calmly, resting her hands above the wound. "You're increasing your blood loss." His head fell back onto the table as he harshly breathed and her hands went over and around where I held before she pulled them back and dropped them. "I can't fix it."  
"You took a bullet out of me," Sarah reminded her, speaking through her teeth.  
"He has internal damage," she told her, lifting her eyes as if it would help her cause to meet them. "He needs medical attention, or he's going to die." Sarah moved almost before she finished and I moved to go with her before a bloodied hand took my wrist and I froze at the contact.  
"Please stay with me," the man begged, his eyes surprisingly firm on my face and searching it as his fingers slipped and struggling to get it back. "Please ... don't you ... stay with me." I slowly nodded and took his hand that held mine with surprising strength and held it so our fingers interlocked and the blood from them didn't slip free.


	6. Dungeons & Dragons

"Bullet nicked his left lung ...," The man – Sarah had called him Charlie – said, hands pressed onto the man's slick side as blood dripped and dried along his ribs. His breaths were choked and coagulated, thick inside his chest and jagged as it rose and fell. ".. I got a fragment lodged in the soft tissue, I can get it out, but will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?"  
"She's a machine," the man sputtered, trying to raise himself and his hand slipping from my fingers before he desperately grabbed it back. "She's a liar."  
"Sedative, my bag," Charlie called to Cameron and John who rushed to get it in respective ways obedient and panicked as the man's fingernails dug in and drawing lines through the red.  
"She's a liar! Manny, Manny don't listen to her," he was pulling me closer and with my other hand I gripped the table to keep from pitching forward as his eyes settled and resettled on my face, blood leaking from the corner of his lips as he choked on each word. "Manny ... everything she says is a lie. You can't trust her. Promise me you won't trust her."  
"I won't," I said, trying to calm him but uncertain if it was with the right terms with the nickname rattling in my thoughts with how familiar he said it and how foreign it was to me. "I promise, I won't."  
"Get that bitch away from me!" He screamed as Cameron came closer, needle in her fingers so it caught the light and painted dots of it along his stomach.  
"You heard him," Charlie said forcibly, holding her stiff as she looked to him in question before allowing him to take the needle.  
"Don't you dare touch her! Don't you dare touch her! I'll kill you," he was convulsing on the island so his back arched in our attempts to hold him down with his head bucking and in danger of colliding with the edge. "You hurt her ... I'll kill you!"  
"Do you want him to die?" Charlie demanded, speaking over his yelling as he pressed the point into the man's arm and disappearing into the blood flushed skin.  
"If I wanted him to die ...," Cameron started conversationally, so out of place in the sound and blood.  
"Cameron!" Sarah warned in a yell and Cameron went quiet, obeying the silent order and stepping back.  
"Mom, come on what can I do?" John asked, desperate and bouncing lightly on his feet in an attempt to contain it.  
"I need a manual respirator," Charlie said, trying to gesture and hold down at the same time so more blood leaked and I used my other hand to stay it. "To drain the lung, okay? It's in the back of my truck. You know what it looks like?"  
"Yeah, I remember," John told him and already running so footsteps echoed over each other.  
"Go get it," Charlie urged on though he already left before turning back to the man on the island. His eyes flickered in his attempt to stay focused while his breaths rasped inside his chest but his grip was still tight on mine, his fingers readjusting so he could hold tighter when he felt himself starting to slip. "Oh my God. Gunshots, punctures, burns, some broken bones. Second – rate medical treatment if anything at all." He turned his head to look up at Sarah, biting his lip against the dozens of questions that his silence spoke anyway. He sighed, shutting them down and glancing across the blood stained surface. "I need some more light." Sarah silently nodded and turned her back to the counter for the lamp as I lowered my eyes, feeling like I was intruding on something that rose my own questions but thankfully weren't as easily spoken in silence. I readjusted my grip on his fingers to hold them where his was going slack as Sarah tilted the lamp to shine over his face, his eyes blinking out of focus in the brightness before settling on me for a brief second and then closing.

"Here we go," Charlie confirmed, twisting the pliers from the man's stomach for what felt like the hundredth time, with it removing the bullet that had been bent out of shape and dripping blood as he dropped it into the dish at the side. I swallowed down the convulsion in my stomach and kept my eyes focused on his face and trying to feel some sense of déjà vu that I knew him when I only came up blank. But this is what it was to be like. People I'd never met in a future at the end of my finger tips willing to fight and die for me when I was on the edge of those reasons myself. Fight for them. Die for them. For them. For John. For me. It started somewhere and would end at the same extreme. Fighting and then dying. For people we'd never met and reasons we didn't fully understand.  
"Derek," Sarah said quietly and I slowly raised my eyes though it wasn't my name and no correction from her to confirm the fact. A sad smile ticked at the side of her lips and she nodded to the man on the island. "His name is Derek." I looked down to him again, putting the name to the face and then trying to put it to myself but still finding space where there should have been understanding. A lost moment of "Oh yes, I remember now." But he might die for me. And I couldn't afford the sentimentality but I would remember his name.  
"Derek," I said quietly and readjusted my fingers through his so I could still hold them and let him now in some recesses of his consciousness that I was still there and watching over him. Derek.

I readjusted my arm resting against the edge and flexed my fingers so I could still hold his while the others stretched. His chest rose and fell in uneasy breaths and I rested my chin on the surface to watch as it fell before rising again after a moment's hesitation. I could see Sarah watching from out of the corner of my eye and ignored it best I could as the low chatter of them talking faded into the background with it. Derek. My most loyal soldier Cameron had said. It was a distant thought that someone could ever be loyal to me. That they would be my soldier. I didn't have friends and so soldier would seem a step up from that. Or down on however you swayed the name. But then again most people didn't have to categorize relationships into soldiers and friends. Footsteps creaked on the cracked tile and I looked up as John walked in, his shape cut off over Derek's head as he cast me a nervous smile and opened the fridge door.  
"You want one?" He asked, head ducked and voice muffled as he rummaged through the empty contents and leaving me to guess what he was offering.  
"Depends on what it is," I told him, finding the hole in his kindness and with an embarrassed grin he held up a beer bottle, that at least something we had.  
"Yeah, sure," I said and held out a hand to him as he came closer and handed it to me already opened. I raised it in a brief taste before taking a sip, looking back to Derek and his eyelids fluttering under the dried blood with his grip in mine still surprisingly strong.  
"How's he doing?" He asked quietly, standing above his head and looking over him like he wasn't seeing the blood and bruises but something else that I only saw in pieces if I bothered to question it at all.  
"Stable," I shrugged, the safest answer when I wasn't exactly sure how he was and taking hints from the fact that he was still breathing and with us. Whether he was internally damaged or slipping into a coma I couldn't tell. And saying so was the more honest answer but somehow not the right one. I still had to learn that the two weren't always one and the same. He nodded, half hearing me and lingered, balancing from foot to foot like there was more he wanted to say before deciding against it and heading back to the living room where I could see Charlie standing. I took another sip of the beer and ran my thumb down the neck to collect the condensation in droplets on my wrist. Derek gave a dry rattle as his chest fell before rising again with the echo of it still lingering.  
The tile creaked again and I lifted my head to see Cameron uncertainly standing at Derek's head and holding a pillow in her hands with her fingers too tightly gripped like it might suddenly grow heavy and cause her to drop it.  
"You should get the Hell out of here," Sarah said, also suddenly walking in and making me turn to see her with her expression solemn and faded blood staining the front of her shirt. "Not you." She indicated me and I nodded, left to either take or leave the omission and flexed my fingers again. Even asleep his grip hadn't lessened and even I had to wonder why he wanted to hold it at all.  
"Did you do something to him? In the future?" Sarah continued, footsteps coming closer and I uneasily stood so my knees cracked and muscles whined in protest. I ignored them and set the half full bottle of beer on the counter before returning to my vigil at his side.  
"I don't know," Cameron admitted, head tilted and still tightly holding the pillow. Her fingers were creasing into the cover and leaving its memory on the cover.  
"You don't know?" Sarah questioned, brow furrowed as she asked it.  
"When they reprogram us, they scrub our memories," Cameron said, a shrug her voice that she didn't demonstrate. "It increases the chance of success."  
"Success?" Sarah asked, doubtful and betraying it with a smirk.  
"Of the reprogramming it," Cameron explain, gently – almost tenderly – lifting his head to slip the pillow underneath. His hair stood on end when it did and I leaned forward to brush it back when he suddenly bucked forward with a gasp, frothy blood spilling from his lips as he coughed and choked.  
"His lungs are hemorrhaging," Cameron said calmly and I desperately pulled my fingers free of his so I could turn him, Sarah on his other side as he convulsed and choked, blood spraying onto my shirt and staining my jeans. "He's drowning in his own blood."  
"Charlie!" Sarah screamed as I lifted my hands under his head to soften any blows and feeling the blood drip between my fingers and onto the tile.

"I stopped the bleeding," Charlie said, walking into the other room but still talking loud enough so I could hear. Derek's hand was in mine again, and I kept my finger pressed to his wrist to keep track of the pulse and not even one hundred percent sure what I could do if it stopped. "I drained his lungs. But your guy lost a lot of blood. And he needs a transfusion."  
"Sarah's o-negative. The universal donor," Cameron said methodically and I almost smiled at the normalcy of her recitation of fact when there was blood on the floor and staining my jeans.  
"It doesn't matter; he needs at least three units of his own type, AB-negative," Charlie sighed, sounding more than just physically tired and the latex of his gloves snapping as he tugged them off. "Bad news is, only one half of one percent of the population are potential donors. We don't find one, you're going to have a serious problem."  
"Then we take him to the emergency room," Sarah said calmly, hands in her pockets and rocking back and forth. "Drop him off anonymously."  
"He's still wanted for Andy Goode's murder," Cameron reminded us and I readjusted my footing so my weight rested on the opposite side. "And for escaping federal custody. We should let him die."  
"Test my blood," I said, words out before she could finish hers and still half leaning on the table when they turned. Their faces balanced in different degrees of skepticism while Cameron's remained unsettlingly passive.  
"You heard the odds, kid," Charlie said, probably catching on that he hadn't yet been given my name. "200 to 1."  
"Then at least we can say we tried," I shrugged, my head pounding from the beer and standing still so long so I wasn't even really sure what I was saying and whether or not I believed it as I did. "Test me." Charlie sighed before looking back to Sarah for approval, her eyes slightly narrowed as if uncertain how I was going to turn this in her favor and upon not being able to find one reluctantly nodding.

"It's not like donating to the Red Cross," Sarah told me, my arm out as she swapped it with alcohol and the coldness of it rising goosebumps on my arms. "He needs a lot of blood."  
"Then I'll give a lot of blood," I said simply, the string of rubber around almost to my shoulder and cutting off my circulation. Dead people and gunshot wounds was one thing but getting a needle done was another. I almost snorted at the irony, machines and dying didn't scare me but having my blood taken made me nauseous.  
"Are you sure you want to do this?" She asked quietly and I looked up at her, hair falling into her eyes so she could avoid my gaze and what I convinced myself was tenderness in them. I cleared my throat to fill the silence before I could say something and not wanting this affect of a maternal figure caring for me and that longing that it was a different one.  
"Yeah, if it saves his life," I looked back over him, the tattoos and blood and the unsteady rise and fall of his chest. That was the whole point, right? They die for me so I can die for them?  
"His name is Derek," she said, also looking at him before resettling her gaze to the tile.  
"You told me," I reminded her, running my thumb over his pulse and the faint thrum of it against my skin.  
"His name is Derek Reese," she said, voice low so I only caught it after she said it. I slowly turned to look up at her, a memory shadowing her meaning. _My name is John Reese. _"He's John's Uncle." Her eyes met mine and held them as I turned this new information over in my thoughts. John's Uncle. My Uncle in Law. John's Mother. My Mother in Law. Not my own. His. And then mine.  
"Okay," said Charlie walking in and almost cheerful as Sarah pulled away and went to stand in her body guard / protective stance. He flicked the end of the needle before coming closer to me, hesitating in space of my own. "Are you sure about this?" I wrestled my grip from Derek's and took the needle from his stilled fingers to press it into my own vein and not bothering to flinch as it hit its mark and I felt the blood beginning to flow.

My arm was beginning to go numb from holding it so long, my head going numb as I counted out the seconds between closing my eyes and trying to surpass each one. Twenty seconds. And then twenty-five. Then fifteen. And then back to twenty. I blinked rapidly to try and catch up all at once before deciding it was a draw and I had to start again. I titled my head to look at him, turning the pump – Charlie hadn't named it so I had to guess – so the blood flowed easier and trying not to think about it winding through the tubes from my own veins. The idea made my stomach turn but I took a deep breath to calm it and decided ignoring it worked best.  
"Kyle?" Derek asked suddenly, jerking upwards with his eyes still closed and hands outstretched for what wasn't there. "Where's Kyle?"  
"Sarah!" I called and tried to hold him down while keeping the blood going but short enough hands to do it. Footsteps rang as she and Charlie rang in, Derek become more erratic as they did and shoving so hard the needle dislodged and causing blood to spurt and start dripping down my arm. I fell back and clutched a tea towel to staunch the bleeding as John ran in and coming to my aid first.  
"Where's Kyle? Where's ... where's ... where's Manny? Manny?" His attention shifted, eyelids fluttering as he fought against Charlie and Sarah and becoming desperate as they didn't budge. "Where's Manny? What did you do to her? Where is she? If you hurt her I swear ... I swear to God ... Manny!" He was screaming now, eyes unfocused and clawing at them as blood gushed from the pump to splatter over the floor and my own still leaking under the towel I held. "Manny!"  
"I'm here," I went past John to his side and somehow managed to get my numb fingers into his again, close enough that he could see me and his vision focusing as he saw who it was. "I'm here. I'm okay. John's okay."  
"Manny," he choked, grasping at me and smearing blood down my arm. John came on to my other side to hold the towel again but it was already soaked through and he had to get another one. "Don't leave me ... please. Please stay ... Manny ... please stay."  
"You're okay," I told him, aware as I said it that it was a lie and that saying it out loud didn't make it any more or less true. "We're all okay." He nodded, his eyes flickering again and falling back to the pillow so the silence was eerie but for the dripping of blood.

I slung my shirt up and over my tank top to cover the bandage that now wrapped around my arm and testing how numb it was and how easily I could flex the fingers. How many wounds had I taken to the chest, arms and legs and it was a disrupted needle that almost brought me down. The thought didn't seem so ironic anymore.  
"Do you know him?" Sarah asked, in my doorway and not bothering to knock as I tried to do up the buttons on my front and my fingers fumbling as the circulation came back.  
"How can I?" I asked, giving up half way up and deciding to just let it hang loose.  
"Well ... he seems to know you," she said, her voice biting and I chanced to look at her reflection in the mirror rather than her herself. Her arms were folded across her chest and her face was hardened again, somehow guessing that something was wrong and presuming it had to do with me.  
"He's John's Uncle. I'm John's wife. I imagine at some point we ran in the same circles," I pretended to fiddle with the buttons again, not wanting to face her and really wanting to just lay down on my bed and collapse. I waited for her to say something else – to call me a liar but she stayed silent and that was somehow worse. I finally turned to face her, her expression not changed and flexing my arm to get the blood flow back. Accepting that she probably wasn't going to say anything I turned to make my way past her, going out of my way to go around and continuing to flex my arm as I went.

He was finally sleeping peacefully. Eyelids fluttering while he dreamed and his chest rising and falling with an easy rhythm that didn't cut short or fall of balance. I looked over the tattoos on his arms and tried to decipher them under the blood and what they meant to him. Or how he found the means to get them when there was a Nuclear War where he came from. Or if he somehow managed to get them before. His hair fell across his forehead and I reached to draw them back when his eyes suddenly opened and I froze, braced to hold him down if he started convulsing again and not sure if I should call for Sarah or Charlie.  
"Hi," he said quietly, voice rasping and I let the word hang as I grabbed and empty glass and filled it before returning to his side. I eased him up so he could take a sip and waited while he gulped it down before letting him rest.  
"Hi," I returned, setting the glass back down and offering him a small smile to see if in turn his was kind. It was.  
"My name is Derek," he said, his fingers gripping for a moment as if to shake my hand but releasing them when he wasn't able to lift it.  
"I know," I told him and his smile widened, though painfully and he cleared his throat to cover it as it faded. "My name is Amanda."  
"I know," he said, that smile now a smirk and I laughed. The door creaked open and I looked over my shoulder to see John and Sarah walking. I leaned back so Derek could see them and his neck straining as he tried to rise and welcome them. I put my hand on his shoulder so he'd fall back and resting it there so he wouldn't be tempted again. John nervously came closer and I knew I should do something to ease him or make him more comfortable but couldn't think straight through my exhaustion and aches and leaving him to stand on his own two feet as he approached his uncle for the first time.  
"Your brother ...," he started but then looked to me, asking for advice I wouldn't give and seeming lost when I didn't. I smiled at him as my only allowance and he turned back, accepting his fate and the weight that came with it. "Kyle Reese ...

I let my shirt drop in a pile on the floor and in a mental reminder to pick it up in the later before flexing my arm to make sure it still worked and I wasn't in danger of waking up tomorrow with no use of it. If it were my left arm it may not have been such an issue but it was my right and in long term I would need both. My fingers clenched and released in personal assurance and I reached for the shirt I slept with off the end of my bed and pulled it over my head so my hair gathered and punched in the collar. It was more personal habit then necessity that I got dressed first but I was so tired I don't even think the first would have been an issue. I pulled back the sheets of my bed and pressed my fingers into the mattress, my body aching at the thought of crawling in and then growing heavy when I realized I still had school tomorrow when I woke up. Stupid really. Going to school when bullets were flying and people almost dying. Like an education was more of a distraction then a requirement and that "my soldiers" probably wouldn't care much if I did or didn't present them with a high school diploma. I'd be surprised if they did. My Soldiers. I traced my fingers over the sheet to run the edge between my thumb and forefinger. I never had anything of mine before. A home, a family, a bed ... they were always borrowed to be returned when done. Hard to imagine that one day people one day might be so mine that they would follow and die for me. That they wouldn't change their mind at the last minute after realizing I might not be worth the sacrifice.  
"Knock, knock," John's voice came from the door and I looked over my shoulder to see him leaning awkwardly in the doorframe with his fists buried in his jeans to make them bulge. "Can I come in?"  
"You did knock," I told him and he tiredly grinned, taking my welcome and the floorboards creaking under it. He ran his fingers over the edge of my mattress as he came to stand with me, tapping out each word he didn't say as he tried to shape his tongue around them.  
"How are you doing?" He asked, nodding to my arm and the bandage that wrapped around it at the elbow and creased with dried blood whenever I moved it. I pressed my fingers hard to the indent to wait for any pain or sudden explosion of blood and when finding none surmised that I would live.  
"Fine. Tired," I tried it as a hint but wasn't sure if I worked well the subtlety when it was for my benefit and no one else's. He nodded, hearing but not understanding and lingering so his fingers flattened out the wrinkles in the sheet like there was worth in making it straight. Scrambling for something he could right when he didn't find it in the things that should matter. Fighting a war. Destroying humanity. Saving humanity. That weight rested on my shoulders but on his as well and I forgot that. The weight I bore with a grimace buried him and I'd forgotten that.  
"Would you like to stay?" I asked, an ache turning over in my chest at how lost he looked and how some desperate part of me wanted to find it for him. Show him how it worked and what it looked like and assure him that it was nothing to be feared. He raised his eyes, something hopeful in them that I saw in shades the first day I met him but not since.  
"I'd like that," he smiled and I smiled back, the ache not so tender in my muscles as for a moment I saw in him what would one day make me love him and what no longer seemed so impossible.


	7. The Demon Hand

His fingers twitched slightly over the twisted sheet and my eyes followed the movement as they tapped out a ghost gesture before going still. I walked around the end of the couch to his side and carefully sitting on the edge of it so I wouldn't fall off and in reverse wouldn't wake him. I pulled the top of the sheet down to reveal his chest and searched for any sign of erratic breathing or darkening of blood pooling underneath the skin. Charlie had told us what to look for when he left and the warning to call if any warning signs occurred. I didn't like the idea of bringing him back when it was a risk in the first place but had grown an uneasy relationship with things that made me uncomfortable and this was one of those times. I started to ease the tape off of the bandage on his chest when his hand shot out to grip my wrist and making my heart stutter inside my ribs.  
"Sorry," he mumbled, blinking uncertainly when he saw it was me and lowering his finger.  
"It's okay," I said, retreating my hand anyway and unsure what to do now that he was awake.  
"Coming to kill me in my sleep?" He asked, eyes closed to slits and a faint smirk on his lips that suggested it was a joke and wanted one in kind.  
"Wouldn't be that hard," I told him, uncertain with the lightness in my voice but rewarded as he laughed but then coughed in pain. I waited for it to settle as he cleared his throat and seemed to calm.  
"Can I check your wound?" I wondered, not that I was here wanting to see through my purpose and not so keen to leave without it.  
"Sure," he allowed, shifting uneasily on the couch and I peeled off the tape again to where I could see the remains of the wound and the dried blood around it. I gently pressed the skin on either side for any darkening underneath and any intake of breath to show me where it hurt you.  
"Am I going to live?" He asked, voice quiet and more tiredly teasing then dark as the question suggested. I moved the tape back and pressed along the edges so it wouldn't come loose.  
"I guess we'll have to see," I admitted, pulling my hands back to check the drip by his head before resting them again in my lap. He barely nodded, head scratched against the pillow and turning so the corners of his shirt dipped over his sides to show the tattoos that lined his arms and chest.  
"Those are nice tattoos," I commented, not able to see them clearly enough to define whether it was the right observation but wanting to fill the silence before I left it. "Where'd you get them?"  
"Here and there," he suggested, licking his dry lips and his chest falling in a heavier sigh. "Some were by choice, others ..." He turned his arm so I could see the barcode above his wrist and the pink overtone between the lines and over the numbers. I nodded, though he wouldn't be able to see it and his breaths back in an easy rhythm that told me he'd fallen asleep again and I didn't have to verbally correct it. I stood again to walk around his sheet that had half collapsed over the edge and into the kitchen where John was eating cereal at the table and Sarah stood quietly at the island as if waiting for me to finish and come in.  
"How's he doing?" She asked, nodding in greeting as my only allowance to one and John smiling to show he defined his greater.  
"Better," I said, going to stand by the corner and running my fingers over the bloodstained surface that Cameron had methodically tried to get clean but still left marks in how some edges were darker than others.  
"Is he, uh, gonna stay here or what?" John asked, fiddling with his fingers and uncertain about the answer even as he asked the question."

"Let's see if he lives first," Sarah offered as the front door opened and Cameron walked in wearing an oversized uniform that bunched and folded in awkward places. "And somewhere in the city, a naked cop bleeds in an alley." John turned back to his cereal, poorly hiding a grin.  
"The hand," Cameron said, holding out a sheet of paper to Sarah who took it and read it over. "I couldn't acquire it."  
"Why not?" Sarah asked, looking to her for the answer as she still held the page.  
"The FBI has it," Cameron answered and Sarah turned to the two of us before she could finish speaking.  
"You two are playing hooky today," she said, gesturing between us as even if she could mean anyone else.  
"Today?" John asked, as if horrified by the idea in contrast to my silent unaddressed thank you. "No, I can't miss class today, mom."  
"Well, we have to find the hand," Sarah countered, touching her own to the surface of the island and spreading her fingers. "Destroy it. No loose ends. Cyberdyne builds Skynet ..."  
"With the chip, remember?" John finished for her with his own answer, his hair falling into his eyes and barely hiding the roll in them.  
"And the hand," Sarah said, trying to smile at his stubbornness and coming off more than hard.  
"Look, the feds have it now, mom," John said, standing up to gather his bag and books while leaving his empty bowl unattended. "I can't help. Besides, absent gets me on their radar." The spoon clinked as he passed it before going around her, slinging his bag over his shoulder as his feet continued their angry step to and out the door. I watched after him for a moment, pulling a debate to pieces in my head before looking back to Sarah.  
"I can play hooky," I told her, personal desire out weighing duty in that I didn't want to sit in class all day for lessons I'd never remember and wanting to do something with myself instead. Sarah's shoulder sagged, the answer that she wanted to hear but not from the right recipient.  
"I can too," Cameron backed me up, eyes wide and almost innocent as Sarah simply nodded, accepting what she was left with.  
"Find Dmitri," she advised, leaning back on the edge and curling her fingers around it. "Derek says he has a sister that teaches ballet. Start with her. Low profile, no guns." She looked to me on the last comment and I was tempted to tell her that Cameron's use of them greatly outweighed my own but going with the self suggestion that nothing of worth would come of it. Cameron nodded, taking the order and starting to walk away with her police issued boots echoing in the hall.  
"You might want to change first," Sarah called after her.

I leaned back against the mirror and feeling out of place and uncomfortable in my worn and dark clothes as the dancers faded into each position and back with the teacher – Maria – walked back and forth between the rows encouraging and adjusting. I could feel my legs tense with the ghostly memory of the floorboards spinning beneath me as I laughed and grew dizzy and wondering what happened to that little girl and whether she had died or if I'd just forgotten her.  
"Beautiful. Thank you. See you all next week," Maria clapped as they finished and began to gather their things, the gentle chaos a welcoming change and putting me back in place where I knew the ground under my feet.  
"What is she doing?" Cameron asked, walking over to me with her leotard pulled tight over her stomach and arms and looking back at one of the dancers who had stayed behind.  
"Pas de Chat," I answered, vaguely remembering and trying not to imagine me in her place. "Step of the cat."  
"Will you show me?" She wondered, leaning forward almost eager and reminding me that it was wires and technology that gave her name to the emotion. It didn't help with the unease and discomfort.  
"I don't dance," I shrugged, hoping she'd take the hint from it but guessing it was a fifty – fifty chance. She stared at me for a moment, waiting to see if I would elaborate before settling into the suggestion that I wasn't.  
"Your sister is very good," Maria asked, coming to stand by us and noticing me resting against the mirror. She smiled kindly as she said it and nodded to Cameron so I'd know who I meant. "Very good height. Beautiful feet. But her upper body is a little ... mechanical." I almost laughed but stifled it with an attempt at a gracious smile instead. "Do you dance?"  
"I used to," I said, changing my answer and not sure how doing so would help us more with what we needed but deciding to give it a chance either way. "Not anymore."  
"You have a dancers pose," she said, gesturing to me and making me suddenly conscious of how I stood. "Very graceful." I smiled again in answer, seeing myself in dancer positions while holding guns or holding closed wounds so the blood and gore disrupted the graceful calm and left me stranded somewhere in between. The bell over the door dinged, saving me from a further answer as Maria looked up and visibly stiffened.  
"Excuse me," she told us, walking over to greet the man who walked in and speaking to him in hushed, rough whispers. I handed Cameron her shirt that I'd been holding and she pulled it over her shoulders, eyes watching the two of them in the reflection and minuscule changes in her eyes telling me that she was already translating what they were saying.

I pushed open the glass doors with a creak, looking for Sarah and finding Derek instead who was sitting cross legged on the floor loading a gun with a pile beside him suggesting he'd been at it for a while.  
"What are you doing?" I asked, already knowing the answer but hoping for context.  
"What does it look like?" He offered, setting the gun in his hands carefully onto the finished pile and picking up the next one waiting.  
"Reloading guns?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest to lean against the door before standing again when I silently questioned whether or not it was graceful.  
"Give the girl a prize," he congratulated, turning the gun in his hands so the light softened the edges so it almost looked fragile when I knew for a fact it wasn't and never would be. I snorted under my breath and shook my head, amused but not sure why.  
"Where were you today?" He wondered, setting the new one to the pile and stopping in his ministrations to look up at me, the light repeating the same affect to soften the lines of his face and not enough history there for me to know if it was honest or not.  
"Trying to find Dmitri through his sister," I answered, leaning against the doorway again and this time knowing it wasn't graceful and more comfortable with the knowledge. "She does a dance class so Cameron and I went to go check it out."  
"Alone?" He asked, standing with a grunt and a light press of blood visible underneath his shirt.  
"No, Cameron was with me," I repeated, already knowing that he knew the answer but questioning the context he wanted. It was his turn to scoff as he reached to put the gun case up on the bed, wincing as he stretched and the mattress sagging under the weight.  
"Yeah, Cameron. What a joke. Walking around like a person. It's not a person," he angrily whispered, more talking to myself then me but loud enough that I still heard.  
"I know that," I said, thinking of the visible wires and ticks she demonstrated and the discomfort it settled in my chest. Fighting alongside machines so we could one day fight them. Another thing that made me uncomfortable but one that I still had to grimace and bear.  
"You shouldn't be alone with her," he looked sideways at me, light and shadow catching his face so his eyes looked lighter and more youthful in a face that was aged beyond it's years.  
"I can handle myself," I told him, straightening as if it could prove it to him and empty of any other demonstration. He straightened as well, a small smile on his lips that trembled back and forth between widening and growing quiet.  
"What's going on?" Sarah asked, walking in and the air shifting under her footsteps. She came to stand next to me, silently repeating the question and sounding harder in my head. "How'd it go with Dmitri's sister?"  
"Good," I said, playing it safe when I had low expectations for her definition of it. "A man came in and they started talking but I think it was in Russian. You should talk to Cameron if you want a translation."  
"You're making a mistake," Derek said, visibly stepping in as he came closer and a sickly sheen to his skin that turned paler in the light.  
"It might have been Ukraine," I admitted, not overly versed on languages and only knowing one or two words of French.  
"Not that," Derek said, very nearly rolling his eyes. "The machine has to go."  
"This morning you had me sending her out to do our dirty work," Sarah reminded him, standing close so despite the difference in size she seemed to tower over him.  
"Dirty work is all they're good for," he burst out, his skin now almost sallow and sweat dotting the base of his neck. "Don't let yourself think that you can train them like a pet, because it'll be the last thing you ever do."  
"You should be resting," I said as he visibly swayed and his eyes flickered over to me, something changing shape in his eyes and taking the fight out of him.  
"They don't rest," he said quietly, turning to walk from the room and his steps lumbering on the floorboards so one creaked louder than the other. Sarah moved from my side to the bed and picked the guns out of the case that he had moved and turning them over for visible alternations.  
"Did you do this?" She asked, holding one up so it was half question, half threat. I shook my head and her eyes passed me to the hall where Derek had disappeared, the lines of her jaw tightened as she worked her teeth back and forth.  
"Tell him if he goes in my room again I'll bust his head," she said tightly, putting the gun back and closing and locking the lid with more force than necessary.  
"Why don't you?" I wondered as she slid it under the bed again with a grunt and the scratch against wood.  
"Because he'll listen to you," she said, bitterly walking past me closer than necessary so her shoulder bumped mine and making me need to step back.

"What happened with the ballet teacher?" Sarah asked, not looking up and the sizzle of the pancakes in the pan giving an almost familiar hint that they would be burned and copious amounts of maple syrup would be needed to cover it.  
"Dance is the hidden language of the soul," Cameron said, head tilted in thought as she repeated my words and the sound of them out of character in her voice. I turned my fork prongs down to the table and tapped it solidly against the wood.  
"First you have to have a soul," Derek said dryly, walking in with an uneasy step and shadows still purpled under his eyes.  
"I mean about Dmitri and the Turk," Sarah corrected herself with a tight smile that she had to be more specific and the smell of burnt batter becoming stronger.  
"I'm going back today," Cameron confirmed with a mild nod.  
"What's the status of the hand?" Derek wondered, leaning back against the counter and sketching over the blood stains on the island with detachment like they weren't really his.  
"Got a good idea who has it," Sarah said, flipping another pancake onto the plate with the bottom crisp through.  
"Who?" Derek asked.  
"FBI Agent Ellison," Sarah answered, looking back over her shoulder at him and scraping at the char on the bottom of the pan.  
"Same guy who questioned me in county lockup?" Derek asked, confirmed by her nod. "What, they only have one FBI agent in this town?" I grinned.  
"Only one who can put this whole thing together," Sarah shrugged, holding out two plates and bringing them over to the table to slide one in front of me. "From what I saw at his house, maybe he already has." I turned one of the pancakes over with my fork to see the blackened underside. A lot of maple syrup.  
"We eat at the table," Sarah said, eliminating me as the addressee as I was already sitting there and Derek reluctantly turning back to join us. Hurried footsteps past me as John walked in, bag already slung over his shoulders and bumping onto his back with each step.  
"Your pancakes are getting cold," Sarah told him, barely a pause in his step to indicate he heard.  
"Here's Dr. Silberman's address," he mumbled and I looked over my shoulder at him as we past her and to the front door, his head ducked and like he was trying to hide from us even as he walked past.  
"You're not hungry?" Sarah asked, taking the piece of paper that he handed her and disbelieving in the question.  
"No," he called, closing the door behind to cut off her question of: "Since when." An uncomfortable silence settled and Sarah interrupted it by going into the other room with her footsteps fading into the background. I picked at my pancakes, turning them over to the burnt side and guessing that maple syrup wouldn't be enough.  
"Not hungry?" Derek asked, settled back in his seat and tapping the plastic prongs of his fork against the table so the ends of them bent under the pressure.  
"Can't complain," I shrugged and took a bite, the acrid taste of it rolling over on my tongue and needing to swallow it down hard. I took another bite however and braced myself for the third.  
"I guess you're not hungry either," Derek said, his attention now on Cameron and still tapping his fork in even beats. Without taking her eyes off of him she reached over for my plate to slide it across and away from me and taking a spare fork that lay on the table. She cut off a piece and delicately chewed and swallowed it before sliding the plate back in front of me with the piece she cut out loudly visible and pointed towards me.  
"You might have fooled them, but now me," he coldly told her, her chin tilting towards him as if meeting head on his unspoken threat. "I know you."  
"I know you too," she answered, eyes pointed down to stare at him and the cold tension returning so the pancakes turned to ash in my mouth and left me with even less of an appetite.

"John?" I jogged up the hall after him, the bell ringing in warning in the background that class was supposed to start and everyone else rushing to meet it. "Hey, John." I slid my hand down his arm and turned him, his gaze focused down so I couldn't see his eyes but enough of a slump in his shoulders to tell me that something was wrong. "You okay? You kind of ran out this morning."  
"Yeah, I didn't really feel like moms cooking," he said and flicking his hair out of his face to leave his eyes vulnerable with a redness around their edges. I might have been willing to pretend to believe him if it wasn't for that.  
"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked, the question uncomfortable in my throat as I tried to shape it as sympathetic and comforting but coming out more so accusatory and reminding me why I preferred action to words.  
"We just did," he said, eyebrows crooked as if believing the lie and unsure why I would question it. I opened mouth to try again but he turned to walk away before I could start so it was most likely safest on that parts as I was more then not going to say the wrong thing.

The grass darkened and flattened under my bare feet as I walked over to where Derek stood, his head bowed and watching the earth with the shadows moving across it. I settled to a stop next to him and for the first time could see the comparison in height and that I barely reached his shoulder.  
"What are you doing?" I asked, wondering before and after I said it whether or not I should leave him alone but my actions contradicting the thought.  
"Grass," he said quietly, moving his foot back and forth across them so the light played over his toes and made them stretch and then soften.  
"I'm guessing we don't have grass in the future," I said, a breeze pulling my hair back over my shoulders and gentle down my neck. He nodded, lifting his head and his shoulders fall back in a heavy sigh.  
"We don't have a lot of things," he confessed, turning to look down at me so he had to squint against the light and making me have to guess for his age which before I had seemed certain on.  
"When were you born?" I asked, trying to account the missing eight years and the reminder that I was supposed to be twenty-three.  
"1995," he smiled faintly as he said it, aware as I was the complexities of varying time lines and how they made pause to figure them out.  
"So, I'm older then you," I said, enough common sense in place of math skills to puzzle that out for me.  
"A little," he said with a small laugh, tilting his head to look up at the sun and the fingers of it stretching down his cheeks and then neck. I squinted up at it with him, my vision blurred by it but not wanting to look away as I turned the warmth of it over on my skin.  
"What am I like? In the future?" I asked, unsure for a moment if I said or thought it or even whether I wanted the answer. But I did. I wanted to know where I ended up so maybe I'd know where to start and the thought half terrifying me of how high I had to reach and how much depended on if I made it.  
"Strong," he said after a moment prolonging the belief that I only thought it and just as quiet. "Fierce. Passionate. Determined. I don't think I ever saw you stop. You were always fighting. Always." He looked down to me again and I softened my focus on the back fence and the lines that carved down it. _Always fighting ... never stopped ... _What a leader was supposed to be. What I had to be.  
"Does it scare you?" He asked, genuinely curious and I squinted up at him before back to the fence, finding more comfort in it.  
"Of course," I admitted, saying the answer and not the question so it was only half the truth and somehow more forgivable when I had never before let myself be that vulnerable. I couldn't afford to be. Not now. Not ever.  
"You don't show it," he commented, somehow gaining the insight when I had only known him for several days and with the others for more than weeks. But then he knew me already. In the future. Out of reach. Was I scared then too? Did I remember fear or bury it so deep in terror that it would awake and break me? Did I allow myself even that much?  
"I'm ... not allowed to be," I said quietly, not sure why I was saying it when it was so much harder to shut out when said and not only thought. I swallowed down on the other words put felt them anyway sharp on my tongue. "Scared."  
"We all get scared," he said, his voice soft and making me note that it must have been rough before. I looked to him and his gaze on mine, falling back and forth over my face and almost warm. Almost kind.  
"Doesn't mean we're allowed to," I told him, shrugging it off and digging my toes into the grass again so the dirt curled under the nails and was dusty on the bottom. He continued to look at me for a moment like he was peeling back the layers of me and leaving me naked with only my bones to hold me together. It made me uncomfortable and I pressed myself into it for another to see if I could before turning around and walking back inside.

I pulled open the fifth box and folded down the sides so my fingers became fine with another layer of dust that turned them gray. Inside were a stack of old photo albums and I picked them up one by one to flip through them and the aged photographs of family and children laughing and standing together with names and dates beneath each one to lay evidence to a timeline. Jimmy and Sarah, 1992. Carter and David, 1993, family reunion, 1994 ... Just faces. Just names. Not people. Not anymore. Just memories. That's all we ended up being. Memories in a box if we were so lucky and forgotten in the ground if we weren't. I tossed the books back and slid it aside so it cut a path over the dust and reached for another. This one had what I was looking for and I fingered through the old shirts for the bigger ones in guessing that I didn't know his proper size. They were old, soft ... probably in need of a wash though I was sure he wouldn't complain. _Scared ... Doesn't mean we're allowed to ... _I folded down one of the shirts and tried to remember all the times I had been sacred. When I had curled up in myself in fear. I couldn't remember. I hadn't been in so long I didn't know what such vulnerability felt like. A scratching through the layers of paint to see the canvas underneath and the knowledge that it wasn't so beautiful. That it wasn't so strong. I shoved the box away with my pile on my lap and stood with it cradled to my chest. I wasn't allowed that. And I never would be again.

"I brought you some clothes," I said, tossing the pile onto the edge of the couch so Derek looked up and fingered over the top of them and down the layers I'd collected. "If you need any more I can keep looking." He glanced up at me, holding onto one of the ones I'd gotten from the bottom and took it as a dismissal and turned to leave.  
"Wait ...," he called and I froze, cautiously turning back as he uncomfortably turned the fabric in his hands and cover his knees. "About outside I'm ... I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. That wasn't my intention."  
"It's okay," I assured him, leaning back against the frame and digging my hands deep into my jeans. He nodded, not believing me but letting us both think on the surface that he did. "I didn't know your size."  
"So you picked the biggest one?" He asked, holding up one of them to demonstrate the difference and making me grin, embarrassed.  
"I thought it was safest," I teased, the effort of it unfamiliar but not unwelcome. He also smiled and tossed it back onto the pile.  
"Thank you," he said, nodding and shifting on the couch with his mouth uncertain on other things to say and which ones were safest.  
"How's your wound?" I asked, noticing him wince and he looked down to his side where the faded blood stain still crusted.  
"I don't know. You mind taking another look at it?" He asked, glancing up and swallowing on the words like his mouth had gone dry. I nodded and walked over to join him as he twisted his fingers into his collar and tugged his shirt up and over his head. I knelt down at his side and peeled off the tape holding the bandage and to where the bullet wound still faded. His breathing went shallow as I pressed along the mark and listening for any intake or wince that told me he was in pain.  
"Looks good," I said, sticking back the tape and standing back so he could pull back on his shirt. "Probably shouldn't push yourself too far though or you'll rip the stitches." Footsteps came past the door and we both looked back to see Cameron, her steps slowing as she saw us and taking in Derek shirtless on the couch and me standing next to and above him before continuing without stopping and making me feel like I'd done something wrong.

I flexed my toes into the hardwood and turned them back and forth in a point in faded memory of an old dancer's pose that I had once perfected and since forgotten. The picture of me and Ally that I had printed lay beside me with its image creased and corners curled so I could see us smiling on one half and then almost solemn on the other. I could still remember her giggling as we spun around my bedroom with our toes kicking up the dust so it faded like magic in the sunlight with her proud declaration that she was dancing. I was graceful. That was what Maria said. I was strong. That was what Derek said. What did I say? I wanted to be both. I wanted to be neither. I didn't want to have to hand pick and choose who I was in terror that I'd pick the wrong answer and everyone would suffer for my mistake. I wanted to save the world and spin in the dust like it was magic and giggle like I remembered how to and hear Ally alive to laugh with me. I stood up and turned my ankle back and forth to let out any kinks before doing the same to the others and then holding out my arms in a pose I'd seen the dancers use with Cameron and had mimicked in my head since. Graceful. Strong. Beautiful. I couldn't afford to be all three at once. So I'd settle for quiet. For silence when I didn't have to choose and be a pure action instead of a questioning thought. I spun around on my toes before swinging back my leg to kiss the floor and then stretching it again as high as it could go. Muscles that had been used for a different purpose for so long ached and I spun and faded from one dance to the next as it came back in pieces and I'd finish one before remembering another and then another and another. I could hear Ally laughing again, her weight on her toes and her calling to me that she was dancing and it didn't count if I didn't watch. I brought my arms gracefully down to my sides and then back up again, her laughing like music in my ears and the memory following me around saying it didn't count if no one watched. I turned again and almost stuttered but found my place again when I saw Derek in the doorway and watching with tears running down his face.


	8. Vick's Chip

"Mom, foods done," John called, tapping his pencil over his page and using the warning as a distraction from the homework that neither of us really wanted to do. "Smells done."  
"Past done!" I agreed, calling back over my shoulder and the smell of burning already hazy in the kitchen. I flipped back and forth between the last two pages of work and tried to use it as an excuse to prolong the inevitable that I didn't know what I was doing and two more years in high school wouldn't change that.  
"Mom, come on. It's gonna get burned," John tried again though I could have told him we were past that point. "Mom!" Footsteps ran into the kitchen and I looked back to see Sarah jogging in and over to the oven where smoke was leaking through the sides of the door.  
"The roast should have been removed from the stove 18 minutes and 27 seconds ago," Cameron calmly told her, turning from her vigil at the window as Sarah pulled on the oven mitts to pull out the crisped black pan that sizzled when she touched it.  
"It's fine," she insisted, letting it drop onto the island where bits of char broke off to litter the surface. "All right. Not exactly fine." Derek walked behind John and into the kitchen, his gaze hard and on Cameron as I followed his step to the middle where he laid something small and metal on the stack of plates and I got up to see what it was.  
"Where you get this?" Sarah quietly asked, picking it up to turn it between her fingers and upon coming closer I could see it was a T -888 CPU and felt my blood run cold.  
"Her room," Derek said after a moment, leaning back against the counter with his voice cold while staring down Cameron who looked cornered and confused.  
"Why are you in my room?" She asked, stepping forward and turning the accusation.  
"You told me you destroyed everything," Sarah said quietly, John coming over to join us and uncertainly standing next to me with his eyes on the piece.  
"She lied," Derek said, his voice tough with bitterness and not taking his eyes off of Cameron's face.  
"The chip contains visual records of the T triple 8," Cameron said, eyes lowered and saying it like a recitation she'd repeated too many times. "Where it's been, who it's interacted with. It carries important information."  
"It's a brain," Derek summed up, looking to me as he explained like I was the one he needed to convince. "It's the only truly irreplaceable part of the machine and she kept it." Sarah put it back onto the table and I watched it roll back and forth with the shadows on either side shuddering in the move. "Next she's going to tell us that somehow that's going to help us find the Turk."  
"It won't help us find the Turk," she told him plainly.  
"What are you saying?" John asked, looking over at Derek and his fingers unconsciously touching mine with Derek almost flinching as he noticed.  
"What I'm saying is what I've been saying, John," he said, his voice stiff in an attempt to keep it calm. "She can't be trusted. No matter how she acts on the outside, we have no idea what's going on in there."  
"Well I could say the same about you," John said quietly, dangerously so his gaze lifted again and his eyes narrowed. Derek didn't fall to match it.  
"Who showed you my safe house?" He asked, stepping closer again and away from the shadows so the tension in his jaw could be more easily read. "She did. Who else knew about it? Nobody. Where are my men?" He looked to me like he was asking the question but knowing himself the answer. "In the morgue."  
"I didn't give the triple 8 the safe house location," Cameron insisted, pleading this to Sarah though it was Derek with the accusations.  
"Prove it," he dared.  
"Have you ever hacked one of these?" John sighed, running a hand down the back of his neck and gesturing to the chip that had stopped rocking and now lay still on the surface. "Have you ever read what's on it?"  
"No," she admitted, looking to him and solemnly shaking her head. "But you have."

I rested back onto the mattress with my feet gripped in my hands to keep my balance while flexing my toes against my palm. I could still feel them pressing against the floorboards as I turned and found I couldn't shake the sensation as easily as I hadn't wanted to with the ghostly steps of it following me as I made my normal pace. John cleared his throat from where he looked to the screens and I tried to think of something to say to fill the silence but only found myself staring at the lines of information displayed and understanding none of it.  
"What are you doing?" I asked, taking it as my best guess and he looked over his shoulder to smile at me.  
"Want to see?" He asked, tilting his head back to the screen and I got up to sit next to him and gripping my hands under the stool at his side. He fiddled with some of the functions in front of him and I waited for the screen to do something as I only saw static.  
"You're pretty good with this stuff, huh," I said, awkward obviousness of it outweighed by the compliment and his embarrassed grin telling me I'd hit the mark.  
"Yeah, I guess so," he said, shrugging off his own skill like it made no difference as he plugged in and took out an array of coloured wires. I thought of the old bomb making joke of red wire or blue wire and managed my own self inflicted grin.  
"What?" He asked, noticing and somehow knowing that he wasn't the inspiration.  
"Just the ... old cop movie question. For bombs. Red wire or blue wire," I pointed to where I'd remembered it and he laughed as it sunk in.  
"It's always red," he said, shaking his head in amused disbelief as he tried something else and the screen changed to a series of images of a series of terminators turning at once and then someone running before settling on the poor quality of a woman in bed. She rolled over and groaned with sleep, the dim light cool over her face and shading the details of the room in shadow.  
"Vick, God you poor thing," she said, now lying in her back and her arms vulnerably stretched. "You're up again? I told you; just take one of my pills." The image scattered by the one of the woman running before back again in darker focus. "Fine, babe, come back to bed. I can't sleep with you standing there like a statue." The screen faded back into static and leaving the room uncomfortably quiet.  
"Was that thing ... married?" John asked, straightening in his seat with discomfort and looking up at me with his brow creased. I ignored the question and continuing looking at the screen, the image of it still blurred in lines of black and white and something dark rolling through me at how innocently the woman lay next to him.

"I know I've been working a lot," she was saying, moving back and forth across a room with papers lining the walls and detailed with numbers and words. "And I know it's been hard for you, hanging around at home since your car accident." The image flickered between several dark ones with the details faded out. "I thought we made progress." She sat heavily in a chair and turned her attention from the computer and then back to the Terminator. "I thought we made progress. Just talk to me, sweetie. Don't keep it inside. Please, please." It changed again so she was pleading and then settled back before showing her at a distance getting out of her car and then up a series of stairs to a mailbox and an address printed on several letters. It then cracked and faded out all together.

"At least now we have an address to go to," Sarah said, tilting it in our good favor as Derek packed guns and other tools into his makeshift backpack.  
"That chip is really creepy," John said through his teeth as if holding back a shudder.  
"We've seen some creepy things," Sarah assured him but it was less of a recommendation and more of a poor reflection. Derek settled another piece into his page and snorted at the understatement.  
"He's protecting her," Cameron said, looking up from the table and her arms politely crossed on it.  
"Why? And why like that?" Sarah asked, setting the paper and mug down that was in her hands like she was having trouble with the weight of the question.  
"Because they're twisted," Derek said darkly like he didn't even know why there had to be a question. "That's why. I'll be in the jeep." He shouldered and passed us around the table and out to the kitchen. I tapped my pencil back onto the table and still staring at the problems from last night and no further in progress then I had been then.  
"She didn't do it," John said, speaking out against the tension that lingered after Derek left. "She didn't give out the safe house. She's not like that other one."  
"I hope not," Sarah said, finding the middle ground between the two and grabbing her own things. "Have fun at school. It's pizza day." John and I raised our eyebrows to each other as she hesitated on her walk out with an uneasy smile.  
"I read the newsletter," she confessed and continued her progress so her footsteps echoed and the door closed after.  
"We have a newsletter?" I asked, confused and John grinned.  
"Isn't pizza day tomorrow?" Cameron asked, looking between us with her eyebrows raised in the mimic of a question.  
"Yeah," John said, still grinning and a laugh playing with it.

"See it?" Morris asked, leaning closer to Cameron with his collar turned down to show off a presumed scar with his face betraying no interest but his eagerness still peaked. "I got it crowd surfing. During Bjork's secret show at the Echo last October. Man, it was the best five seconds of my life, I swear to God. But I got dropped on a chair. I consider it my first tattoo."  
"That's tight," Cameron told him with a sudden smile and Morris's grin turned bashful, proud that he'd earned the remark. I lightly scoffed under my breath at the strangeness of a teenage boy trying to win the approval of a Terminator who had to have it programmed to know what it was. John leaned over my shoulder to take a look at my homework with his shadow dark over the page.  
"Need any help?" He wondered, my pencil loose between my forefinger and thumb with half an answer written that I already knew wasn't the right one.  
"From you? Please you're worth at math then I am," I teased, more comfortable now with the lightness of it and more so with the shy smile it produced from him.  
"Hey, I'm not terrible," he defended, pulling my book over in front of him and looking over the half empty page.  
"You focus on cracking computer codes and I'll focus on failing math," I told him, taking it back to close it and leaning in close enough so that the tip of his nose almost brushed his. His breath intake choked in his throat and I slid my books into my bag as he tried to bring it back.  
"You two are weird," Morris said with an uncomfortable laugh, the sound of it bringing us back and reminding me that we were supposed to be brother and sister and that I wasn't playing the part well.

"Mom," John called for the fifth time, his voice becoming more irritated with each one she didn't respond to and my head resting on my elbows on the desk next to the keyboard and tools that he had tried telling me the names of but I stopped paying attention to halfway through. Footsteps finally sounded and Sarah and Derek came in with the remains of toothpaste still in the corners of his mouth. "So I figured out that they don't store memories the way we do. They store them by categories. Like, mission or location or whatever."  
"How did you figure that out?" Sarah asked, resting her arm on the edge of the table as I gestured to my lips at Derek and he wiped his mouth with the back of his arm.  
"Well, remember those weird robot symbols?" John continued, the static on the screen still playing and giving me a headache when I looked too long. "I still don't know how to read them. But the exact same one kept popping up every time a clip of Barbara was playing. You should look at this." He pressed a couple keys and the running woman came back, the clip of it having played so many times I had memorized the pitches of her screams – something I didn't think I'd forget anytime soon. I bowed my head and heard the sound of dragging and whimpering before a rolling collision of flesh against wood and then I knew that she was dead. Again.  
"He gained her trust," Sarah said quietly and I cautiously lifted my head to the static and preferring the headache of it to the screams. "Made her think he was human. Then he killed her."  
"That's what they do," Derek said and I looked up to see him watching me with his eyes undeniably kind.  
"John, get the flashlights. We're gonna find her," Sarah said, all action now and exiting the room as I looked away, feeling the burn of the look still and not sure how to shake it off.

The sound of our shared footsteps crunched under the undergrowth and the line of my flashlight warning me of what it was before I came to it but no use when I had to cross it anyway.  
"Do we do this a lot in the future?" I asked, needing to fill the silence of something more than just footsteps and the sound of gunfire and screams almost one that would be preferred. "Sneak around in the dark?"  
"We do this a lot," Derek admitted, sighing heavily and shuffling his feet across the leaves as the glow of his flashlight ran out to meet the ones of Sarah, Cameron and John before back again.  
"Great, so I have four years to get scared of the dark," I joked, feeling unease at it and clearing my throat like I could cover it after it had been said.  
"Nothing wrong with that," he said, reaching out an arm to stop me and making hurried steps down a crooked hill. He rested a foot from me at the bottom before holding out his hand to mine. It wasn't as rough as I had imagined it would be though I could still feel the calluses of his palm after he let go.  
"No, I guess not," I admitted, lying as I said it and returning my gaze to the earth. There was a lot wrong about fear. And I had to learn that the wrong way. "Am I though? Scared of the dark?" I didn't specify when I meant but I knew he understood anyway and appreciated that he didn't have to ask.  
"I don't know," he said, looking down to me as the glare of the flashlight passed and showing his features in a burst. "If you are you don't talk about it?"  
"What do I talk about?" I wondered, an aching part of me craving his answers for any about me that I could touch and find familiarity in. Who I would become and how I would get there. Or if I made leaps to that point and left out all the hard parts first.  
"The War. Fighting it. Winning it," he said, nothing to suggest that he was tired of me asking but almost looking forward to each one. "John. Your kids."  
"Three? Right?" I asked, this phantom children in my thoughts and nothing to distinguish them from each other or even to define them as my own.  
"Yeah. When you're not talking about dying or fighting ... you talk about them. You love them ... very much." I couldn't see him but I could tell he was smiling.  
"So, I guess we're close then. If I talk about my kids with you," I guessed, even with it years away out of touch I could presume it was a closed secret and not one I'd share freely.  
"Yeah," he said, his voice suddenly quiet and almost swallowed in the dark. "We're close." A whistle came from our left and I jogged after it to find John, Cameron and Sarah stopped in front of a log between a series of trees with a woman's body rolled and collapsed in front of it. Leaves and dirt coated her back and I felt the contents of my stomach turn into their insides so I felt sick and dizzy and like I wanted to lie down and cry. Derek walked around me and to her so he could kneel at her side and turn her to face us. Her eyes were opaque and staring with her skin colouring in different degrees of decay of purple and blue.  
"That's not Barbara," John said sounding confused and moving the flashlight over her to illuminate the different details. A button missing on her shirt, a ripped fingernail, torn jeans ... but always back to the staring eyes that seemed to have found me even when they couldn't see. Derek reached over across her and I almost told him not to or he'd wake her before pulling back and biting my lip so I tasted blood.  
"Who the Hell's Jessica Peck?" He asked, holding out a wallet and enough of the photo visible that I could tell she was smiling in it. My stomach contracted and I felt like I couldn't breathe.  
"A threat to Skynet," Cameron said simply, plain as if it stripped her bare of her identity to her bones and left her naked and exposed to anything that made her a person. I knelt to her side next to Derek – who put out a cautious hand to either help or stop me – before leaning closer for a second and closing her eyelids so her lashes felt cold and brittle against my hands.

"Well, how did she get in there to the city council without us knowing?' Barbara was saying, walking back and forth across the screen and in and out of the Terminators line of sight. "I can't be everywhere. I can't. I'm working from home because I just have some family stuff I need to deal with." She looked up to see him listening and leaned closer to whisper into the phone. "I have to go." She hung up and came right up close to the "camera" so the lines of exhaustion could be read in the creases of her eyes and then the reflection of the Terminator in the eyes themselves. "Jessica Peck's trying to shut down my program again."  
"Jessica Peck was a lobbyist being paid to oppose Artie," John explained, stepping back from where he marked on the map and closing the lid of the marker with his teeth.  
"Who's Artie?" Derek asked, resting on the arm of the couch with his foot brushing against my lower back whenever he moved.  
"Automated Real time Traffic Information Exchange," John said, all in a rush with his arms swinging tiredly on either side. "It was one of Barbara Chamberlain's pet projects."  
"I think it's one of Skynet's pet projects," Sarah corrected, looking back at us as John handed Derek a file and checking that we agreed.  
"So this is about traffic lights?" Derek asked, confused and slowly as he flipped through the papers of the file and not finding his answer amongst the pages.  
"Exactly," Sarah said, as if the one word explained everything.  
"It's a fiber optic network linking every street intersection to a data center in city hall," John picked up, arms still swinging and turning the marker back and forth between his fingers so it went from red to black and then back to red. "Cameras, microphones, sensors. Right now it's only a pilot program, but it could grow statewide."  
"Traffic?" I asked, my thinking process slowing down and gone dull by the memory of finding Jessica Peck's body with every time I closed her eyes the lids of them quickly opening and staring back wide and accusing.  
"It's not about traffic," Cameron told me, hair kissing the back of her shoulder as she looked at me but speaking like she included everyone. "It's about information. Eyes and ears everywhere. A system that can watch you, track you everywhere you go. If the Turk is destined to become Skynet's brain, this software could be his nervous system."  
"Like a body waiting for its head," Sarah said with dark humor.  
"And we don't have either one," Derek sighed, still flipping through the pages and whatever black and white images were displayed at random.  
"Well, I guess when they say, "you can't fight city hall," they really mean it," John said, looking over at me for approval to his joke.  
"Yeah, well, whoever said that didn't have as much plastique as we do," Derek said looking up at him and finding John's eyes still rested on me.  
"We can't blow up city hall," Sarah said with as much care to it as saying you can't leave the milk out but with the consequences significantly different.  
"It's really not that hard," Derek assured her, smiling shyly like he already knew the punchline.  
"If we destroy the program they'll just rebuild it," Sarah told him, exasperated by the joke.  
"But if we plant a virus and crash it, maybe they'll think it's a bust," said John slowly, thinking aloud. "It's already a controversial program."  
"Can you make the virus?" Sarah asked, looking up at him and already subtly proud.  
"Sure, but the city hall's computers aren't accessible from the outside," John sighed, already picking apart the flaws in his idea.  
"Just make me the virus," Sarah smiled at him. "I'll get it inside."

I balanced back and forth from foot to foot outside of John's bedroom and contemplating the last few steps when I already had to work myself up through the first twenty five. I could hear him snoring inside and pressed my hands on either side of the door with my eyes closed, Jessica Peck's opening in my thoughts with the white and blue staring at me and the raw anger that I hadn't been there to stop it. To save her. That was what I was supposed to do, right? Lead the army, win the war, save the people ... Me and John together. So what difference did it make if we couldn't save them here and there and had to wait until the possibility that all of them could die. I pressed my palms into my eyes to try and black out the image. It wasn't the time to be thinking this. Never was the time to be thinking of this. React and shoot. Kill the bad guys and save the good ones. Easy questions with easier answers. That was all there was to it. I pressed open the door so the sound of it creaked and he rolled over in his bed, relaxing when he saw it was me. I didn't say anything as he shifted aside to allow me and I crawled in beside him with the sheets pulled up under my chin. He turned over so that he was facing me with his lips to my hair and I closed my eyes to the sound of his breathing and familiarity at his side when those accusing eyes came back and demanding of me why I didn't do better.

"You alright?" Derek asked after the fifth time I yawned and since the second where I'd stop trying to hide it.  
"Yeah, just tired," I lied, rubbing the tightness at the back of my neck and trying my best to keep my eyes open when those ghosted ones replaced the darkness and my sisters words telling me that it didn't count if no one watched.  
"Do you want to talk about it?" Derek asked, his brow creased with the question and the look of it stripping me down to the terror of it no matter how deep I buried it.  
"We just did," I told him as the waitress came close with a notepad in her hand with the breeze tousling her hair.  
"Can I get you anything?" She asked, asking the both of us but looking at Derek as she asked it.  
"A beer," he told her with a half smile allowed to be polite.  
"Make that two," I told her, suppressing another yawn and raising an arm to my wrist to cover it.  
"Do you have any ID?" She asked skeptical, hand on her waist and jutting her hip to that side. I arched my hips to dig through my pocket and pulled out my ID to hand to her. She squinted at it for a moment before holding it to the light and finally handing it back to me, defeated that it was real and disappointed that she couldn't call me out on it.  
"Two beers," she sighed, walking around us and through the tables with her pen and pad still clutched in hand.  
"Old ID?" Derek asked as I slid it back into my pocket and looking amused.  
"With some tweaking from John," I admitted, leaning forward onto the table and looking across the street at city hall where we were supposed to be watching with police officers and security running up and down the steps. "Technically I am supposed to be 23."  
"And I'm supposed to be 12," he said, that same grin still there and almost touching his eyes so I could almost imagine what he must have looked like but finding no companionship for the boy who didn't carry similar weight on his shoulders. I shook my head slightly, ridding myself of the thought and turning the petals of the flower in the vase and feeling the pollen of it soft on my fingers.  
"They're yellow lily's," Derek told me, watching me with the smile now firmly set in his eyes but barely touching his lips. "They're your favorite."  
"And how would I ...?" I stopped myself halfway through the question as the waitress came back with the two beers on the tray and mine sporting a straw out of the spout. "I told you? In the future?"  
"Yeah," he said, leaning forward to take his beer and sipping deeply from it so his Adam's apple bobbed.  
"We talk about flowers in the future?" I asked, half laughing as I took my own and feeling the coldness of it bite down my throat and into my stomach.  
"When people aren't dying or bombs dropping," he shrugged and I shook my head in disbelief, somehow finding that the future mustn't be so terrible if he was there beside me.  
"It means "walking on air," he continued, running his finger up and down the bottle and collecting the condensation in droplets down his fingers. "Or at least that's what you said."  
"They were my mom's favorite," I said quietly, the warmth of the air gone and suddenly cold as I felt the translation of her old joy turned to my own as the kindness of it shrivelled. Derek watched me silently, pressing on whether he should ask or if I should dwell in my brief moment of grief.  
"So, how are you guys getting in?" I asked, jerking my head back to the doors and burying it down with the others and not looking forward to the day when it all burst free.  
"Not through the front door," he said, obliging me on the change of subject and gesturing to the stone building looking too hot in the sun. "These buildings are all connected by underground tunnels that were built during the Cold War. I did a project on them in the ninth grade. My last year of high school." He added the last part as I raised my eyebrows at him and no more embarrassed by it then I would have been in his shoes.  
"How do you know they still work?" I wondered, taking another sip and the taste of it no longer so inviting then it had been a moment ago.

"I lived there, Kyle and I," he said, gone for a moment in the place he remembered him and then slowly coming back. "After they dropped the bombs on us." I nodded to show him I heard and we both looked back to the building with the officers outside thinking of the people we'd loved and who were now forever lost to us.

The screen changed again and showing a man through some windows in a garden with a camera in his hands, adjusting and readjusting the lens as he took picture after picture. The focus changed to a gun being loaded and then following the man down the street where he was visibly trailing the women Barbara that it appeared she didn't know he was there. But then it was on what I recognized as the safe house and the men inside yelling to each other and then one by one shot down as Derek visibly flinched and lowered his eyes. I resisted the urge to offer something of comfort – putting a hand on his shoulder or holding his – but caught the sharp look from Sarah and decided against it.  
"Sayles was always ...," Derek started uncomfortably, his eyes red and holding back on something as he avoided looking anywhere else in the room but us. "... I loved him, but he was an idiot sometimes. He was careless."  
"You were following Barbara Chamberlain," Sarah asked, balanced between statement and question as she gestured to the laptop.  
"I wasn't," Derek insisted, quickly glancing at her before back to his focus on the wall. "I didn't know he was. There were a lot of leads, you know. We spent a lot of time on our own. I didn't know." Derek got up to leave and Sarah was close on his heels, the heavy step of each of their walks suggesting they were going in different directions with John running and calling after her. I walked over to sit on the bed, the mattress sinking under me and remembering lying next to John the night before and the gentle touch of his breath on my neck. I fisted my fingers into the sheet and tried to recall it now but was counting up the men who had died in the safe house with Jessica Peck and then the girl Jordan to bring the count to five. Five people. Five lives we didn't save.

"Hey," John said, his voice quiet and I barely turned my head to find him at the doorway standing while I lay on his pillow.  
"Hey," I said back, arms crossed and waiting for the joke of "knock, knock" but knowing I wouldn't be able to pretend to laugh if he did it. He awkwardly tapped his hands onto his jeans as he walked over to the bed and crawled over the end of it to join me and lying by my side.  
"You okay?" He asked, head turned towards me so that his nose brushed my forehead and I could feel his breath on my eyelids. I didn't answer. Didn't know what to say or how saying it would make it better. It was just words. I'm sorry or I regret or I love ... just words lost in time where bombs or guns could easily take it away if they were so commanded to do so. I reached across us for his hand and lifted it to me so I could turn it over. His hands were dry. Soft. Little burns or scars on them from incidents he hadn't yet told me about or free from those he had yet to get. Would he tell me about them one day? Would I tell him about mine? Name each other's scars and how we got them and how in doing so it chipped the parts of us down to rubble and yet somehow we still found the strength to stand? Side by side. Together. I raised his fingers and pressed my lips to the tips of each one before coming to his ring finger which was still bare and no timeline until when it would stop. Did we wear rings? Did he give them to me or did I to him? My hand was bare too so for now it didn't make a difference. I entwined my fingers through his so they matched up perfectly and felt his breath grow shallow as I held our clasped hands between us and closed my eyes. My hands were empty. But for now they were full.

A throat loudly cleared itself from the doorway and I opened my eyes and looked up to see Sarah standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest and her chin nodding at the two of us as if silently asking for an explanation and that it needed to be explained in the first place.  
"We weren't having sex," I told her, my fingers cramped and coming loose from John's who also sat up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes with his cheeks going red at the comment.  
"How'd it go?" He asked uncomfortably, his throat rough and clearing it while trying to look anywhere else.  
"It didn't work," she said shortly, turning to me like I had a personal responsibility to its failure and needed to defend that as well. Footsteps came in behind her in the shape of Derek who stopped when he saw the two of us on the bed.  
"What's going on?" He asked, his eyes locked on mine so I had difficulty looking away.  
"They weren't having sex," Cameron said from behind the both of them and all of us turning to see her innocently looking from one to the other. "I made sure to check on several occasions." I rubbed a crick in the back of my neck and rolling my shoulders to distract myself from the uncomfortable silence and the bigger things at large.  
"So what do we do?" I asked, finally breaking it and waiting for them to take it from there.  
"We should just blow it," Derek said, walking in to stand by the desk and pointedly looking anywhere but at me and John.  
"We can't go back there," Sarah insisted, reluctantly taking her eyes off of me and turning her frustration onto him. "What are you going to do, take an ax to every traffic light in town?"  
"No," said John slowly, looking half in thought. "We only need to take down one."

John carefully leaned Cameron's head back onto the pillow and sweeping her hair to one side to get through the skin with a small blade in his hands.  
"Two centimeters left," she instructed, his hands almost shaking and moving awkwardly to follow through. "One centimeter down. Cut a semicircle with a diameter of 12 centimeters."  
"Is it okay if I'm off by a little bit?" He asked, as his blade punctured and he stilled the rest of its progress.  
"Yes," she assured him, eyes flat and on the wall behind him and to the window beside it. "Cut a bigger circle to compensate."  
"How exactly is this going to work?" Sarah asked, a dark shape from the end of the bed with Derek uncomfortably pacing behind her and sneaking me glances.  
"Her neural system is the most sophisticated learning computer on earth," John explained, putting down the blade for the moment and steadying his breathing. "If we can get her chip into the A.R.T.I.E. System, it can take down the whole thing. Just like Vick did with my laptop. She can kill it."  
"You can get in through a traffic light?" Sarah asked, trying to understand and not daring to hope.  
"Yes," John nodded, returning with his blade.  
"Are you sure?" She asked, skeptical but kind in asking.  
"No," John admitted, leaning over Cameron again and read to start slicing at her scalp with the knife.  
"Are you sure?" Sarah asked, looking to Cameron who still lay still on the bed.  
"No," she said, not concerned either way with the answer. "Start the incision. Push harder, down to my endoskeleton."  
"Sarah. Once she's in the city's mainframe, what's to say she'll come back out?" Derek wondered, leaning over Sarah's shoulder and whispering but loud enough that we all could hear. "You know, maybe – maybe it's not the Turk that created Skynet. Maybe it's her. Maybe this was her plan all along."  
"She's a machine," John burst out, blade lowered with synthetic blood on the edges and his breathing uneasy. "She doesn't have a soul and she never will. You don't have to trust her. You can trust me." The two of them stared each other down for a moment, something else passing between them then the mutual distrust but ending when Derek looked away first.  
"Set the pliers over the shielded tab on the end of the chip," Cameron continued, John returned to his work and flicking his hair out of his eyes. "A half turn counter-clockwise and pull it out." He followed as she instructed and a shallow whir sounded as her eyes froze up and her chin lowering as she powered down. John grunted as he leaned over her, pulling out the CPU and holding it between the tongs of the pliers with bits of hair stuck to the ends.  
"I have to get this to the CPU interface," he said, looking to Derek and Sarah with it held open to them as proof to trust him before looking to me for my silent approval. I gave it with a small smile and he ducked his head with a proud blush crawling up his neck.  
"I'll take him to the traffic light," Derek said through his teeth and marching out of the room before any of us could agree or disagree with the offer.

I turned on my bedside lamp as I rummaged through my drawers for a change of clothes before something catching my eye on the mattress and turning to see its detail. It was one of the yellow lilies from the cafe on my pillow and I smiled faintly, bringing it up to my nose and inhaling the fresh scent of it that then scattered pollen on my fingers. My first thought was John but then I remembered he would have no way of knowing the significant and that it had to be Derek. The man I barely knew who knew me more than I did myself. Strange how that happened. I lay it back where I found it and rested my hand on the pillow that came away flat. I ripped it up where it lay with the space under it bare where I'd kept my gun in split comfort and unease. I pulled back the sheets and then ducked to look under my bed to see if it had fallen and feeling vulnerable in my own skin that I only had my teeth and nails to defend myself even if the need wasn't imminent. I scanned over the floor once more before seeing the flower again and my vision turning red with an anger that drilled holes into my skin. Derek. I angrily stood and walked from my room and through the hall to where the bathroom door was open and the shower running. I pulled back the curtain to find the water running down his hair and back before he slowly turned and raising an eyebrow, asking for the interruption.  
"Where's my gun?" I demanded, fingers digging into fists at my sides and my nails sharp enough to leave their memory in wake.  
"What?" He asked, running a hand back through his hair to gather the water and a sheet of it rolling down his neck.  
"My gun. I kept one under my pillow and now it's gone. You were the only one in my room. Where is it?" I crossed my arms instead to decrease the damage and waited for him to answer, swallowing as the water dripped into his lips and he seemed at a loss of what to say.  
"I – I borrowed it," he admitted, looking younger with his hair and face damp and something almost innocent to his eyes.  
"For what?" I demanded, thinking of the six or so guns I'd seen him have at random moments and wondering how he kept track of them all.  
"Just to check it. Make sure it was loaded properly," he shrugged like it didn't mean anything and washing back the stream of water from his face a second time.  
"You think I can't do it?" I asked, feeling the need to remind him of the times I had loaded and used one properly and more angered by the fact that he most likely already knew that and questioned it anyway.  
"I didn't doubt I just ...," he sighed, resting his arm on the tile siding of the wall before looking back at me with droplets of water clinging to his lashes. "I just wanted to make sure no one messed with it that's all."  
"Like who?" I asked, arms dropping again and running through the short list. As much as Sarah seemed to hate me at times I doubted she would actually go through with it and tamper with my weapon.  
"Cameron," he said, looking me dead in the eye like he was concerned that I even had to ask.  
"If Cameron was going to kill me there are easier ways to do it," I said which was the wrong answer but needing to point out the logic of it anyway.  
"I know," he said quietly, the flow of the water faded in the background and echoing against the marble. "I left it on my bed you're free to go get it."  
"Thank you," I said, voice hard so he knew I didn't mean it.  
"You're welcome," he said almost as if he did. I waited another moment, unsure what to do next and having trouble dropping my gaze when the water continued to drip into his eyes and down his cheeks but making no move to clear them. It then settled in bits and pieces that he was wet and naked in the shower and that I was staring at him like I had no reconciliation with the fact. Heat burned up the back of my neck and without even meaning to I glanced down before back up at his eyes with no change in them to tell me how he'd reacted to it. I swallowed hard and turned to walk away, my heart pounding deafeningly in my ears and my breathing rough and out of rhythm.

The mattress sank underneath me as I turned the reclaimed gun back and forth in my hands and drawing comfort from the weight. The flower still sat on my bed and I resisted the urge to tear and throw it into tiny pieces in angry and frustration at the past it brought up and the future it was encouraged by with me lost and in between. A flower and a gun. Side by side and me somewhere in the middle. I was graceful. I was strong. I was beautiful. I was none. I was nothing. Just a girl in a role that anyone could have filled but had been picked to fill it. Just a girl. No one special. I checked the chamber to find it cleaner then before and angrily shut it like the thought was a betrayal to the only thing I was good at. Shoot. Kill. Protect. Live. Not in that order and not all at the same time. I pushed the gun to the side and then reluctantly reached for the flower with the stem twisted between my fingers. It's petals were delicate and I ran my thumb along the edges of it and wondering how easy it would be to break them. Easy. Too easy. Delicate things were often broken and stronger things made to fix them. Again not in that order. I thought of the smile on Derek's face and the water dripping down his eyes and felt some angry well up inside me and had to take a breath to keep it down. Keep it buried and dead where other things couldn't touch it. Footsteps creaked in the hall and I looked up to see Derek standing there and watching me, pants slung low on his hips and water dripping down his chest. I could see the tattoos painted up it and around my arms and saw my tunnel vision so that for a moment I didn't think of John or Machines or the Future or a Nuclear War that I had too big a part in. I thought of him. Only him. Derek. I shook my head as I came back from it and got up to walk to the door as he still stood there, his lips parted like he wanted to say something. I kept my eyes matched with him as I took the door handle in my hands before leading it in front of me and closing it with a click.


	9. What He Beheld

"Remind me again," Derek started, head leaning back against the seat and voice lazy as if simply piecing together random words to fill the silence. "Why ...why are the boys out here and the girls in there?"  
"I'm a girl," I told them, bringing it up to remind them in case they somehow forgot.  
"We didn't notice," John said, his voice teasing with a grin visible in the rear view mirror. I lightly hit his arm to response and he tried to throw himself through the two front seats to retaliate so I pulled back as far as I could go and just out of reach.  
"That's enough now," Derek said, his voice a touch rough so John slid back into his seat still grinning and I pulled back into my own with the unsettling sense that he was watching me.  
"We're in the car because one of the boys is still wanted for murder," John continued, going back to answer his question while still trying to suppress his grin. "And one of the girls is ... harder than nuclear nails."  
"And the other ones a cyborg," Derek finished, smiling in personal acknowledgement of the joke as John laughed. Derek glanced up at my reflection in the mirror and I avoided it by looking out the window at the shifting crowds while trying not to notice how small the Jeep felt when he did.  
"You wanna know why we're really here?" John asked, resting back in his seat so his shoulder brushed my fingers and I ran them back and forth so the hairs on his neck stood up.  
"Why?" Derek asked, his attention turned to the window and ignoring us beside him.  
"Moore's law," John said, squinting in the mirror and giving an audible shudder as my fingers continued their caress. Derek grunted in response, looking forward now and glancing at times uncertainly to the side. I stopped my ministrations when the times hit double digits.  
"The guy who founded Intel said that every two years, the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles," John recited, head leaning back in the seat so he could catch my eye and make sure that I was listening. "30 years ago, it was an observation. Now it's a law. Tech industry spent billions doubling chip power."  
"And?" I asked, encouraging him forward and misunderstanding the purpose in the words I didn't know.  
"And that's how we can go from a chess computer to the apocalypse in just four years," he said, his voice now quiet and bringing forward the issue while leading the steps up to it still empty. "I learned a lot can happen in four years." In four years Skynet would declare war on humanity. In four years there would be an army to oppose him with John and me leading it. The two of us would be married and on the way to bearing children that I couldn't name or put a face to. And every four seconds I had to remind myself of this because I seemed to forget whenever I was alone with or looked to Derek.  
"A lot can happen in four seconds," he said, as if hearing my thoughts and speaking over to cover them. "One minute, I'm in the yard with my brother, playing baseball, and the next, we look up, and the sky's on fire."  
"Judgement Day," I said quietly, tasting the words on my lips and the bitter scent of them. April 21, 2011. The day we were reaching to. The day we had to stop.  
"What did you do?" John asked, as quiet as I was and tasting the question as coldly as I the answer.  
"Only thing to do," he said, light about it like it hadn't been life or death but a mundane event that landed somewhere in between. "Took Kyle and went underground."  
"What was he like?" John asked after a moment, the edges of his voice raw and avoiding my gaze through the mirror.  
"He was just a kid when it happened," Derek explained, rubbing at his jaw as he tried to think and the bristles of it loud and crawling down my spine. "Eight years old. I was 15. How do you tell an eight – year old machines have taken over the world?"  
"You don't," I mumbled, the words barely passing my lips and taking on the weight of it as if I were a child and didn't know what buried me. But I did know. I reminded myself of it every day. Skynet. Nuclear War. Machines. The Future. John. Always John.  
"No, you don't," Derek agreed and I took the risk to meet his gaze and looked away before I could want what I saw.

Derek lowered the coffee mug and made a grimace over the rim of it, wiping at his lips as if to remove the lingering taste.  
"What's the matter with this coffee?" He asked, squinting into the bottom of it with his nose still scrunched in trying to keep it down.  
"I made it," I admitted, not daring to take a sip of my own but saying goodbye to that shred of confidence that suggested third time's the charm.  
"Oh," he said and immediately taking another ill fated sip. "It's good." I shook my head to hide a smile and was interrupted from it by an urgent knock at the door. Derek quickly rose and pulled a gun off of his lap, Sarah walking in and past him with her own as he tugged me almost unnoticeably behind him with his grip stretched in front. Sarah sighed as she neared the door, looking back to the two of us with not even attempted disguised exasperation.  
"I'll handle this," she said and opening it to admit Charlie who looked nervous standing in the frame.  
"Come on," Derek mumbled and grabbed the back of my shirt to lead me from the room and sliding his gun back into the waistband of his jeans.  
"You just bring a gun to the breakfast table?" I asked, a hypocrite when I had a gun under my pillow but uncertain of the limits you were able to have one and when that line was crossed.  
"Well I have to. It serves your coffee," he teased and I hit him in the back of the arm in response as he continued walking and laughed.

"Faint yellow tint," Cameron listed, turning the diamond between her fingers and scanning over the details as she looked. "Grade "M." Slightly included. Shallow cut."  
"You can't just give a briefcase full of money to a man like that and expect he's just going to hand over the Turk," Derek remarked dryly, turning over the handful in his palms while I did the same. I saw none of the details that Cameron was saying but on that note none of the worth either. I could almost see me reflection in it in shards. But that did not improve or decrease its value to me either way.  
"Actually, I can," Sarah said with a forced grin, daring him to further argue.  
"Well, those are from the safe house that I set up, so, technically they're mine," Derek said, taking her up on the bait and smiling like he caught her there.  
"Well, I'm guessing you stole them, so, technically they're evidence in a felony," Sarah countered with a smirk more in her tone then her lips. He blinked at her in response and I ducked my head to grin. "What are we up to?"  
"Current estimated value is two hundred and forty – six thousand," Cameron answered and setting the diamond she was holding rest back on the table so pin points of light dotted through it and over my hands.  
"You don't even have enough," Derek said, smug that he was right if not in the context he'd predicted.  
"We'll negotiate," Cameron said her voice simple and flat despite the threat underneath them.

My footsteps echoed under the hundred of others as I walked through the marble hall of the museum with John almost at my elbow and staring at the floor as we walked. The other students laughed and chatted to one another as they held out brochures and I looked up into the face of a reconstruction of a dinosaur, the holes in the skull meant for eyes staring back at me and empty to say what they found in the look. I carefully made my way around it, John hanging back as Cameron went to him and let my gaze crawl down its spine and all the way to the end of his tail. They had been so large. So powerful so seemingly indestructible. And they all died. What chance could we possible have?  
"You okay?" John asked, jogging up to meet me in the parking lot and his fingers tugging at his bag strap so the ends of it frayed.  
"Yeah. Why?" I asked, squinting at him in the sun so he could properly see my expression and even less hear the lie in my voice.  
"I don't know. You're just ... kind of quiet," he shrugged, downplaying his observation and trying to seem impartial to have noticed. I swept my hair back from my face and shifted the topic.  
"What about you? You weren't exactly talkative either," I pointed out, kicking at a loose stone and watching myself lose it as it rolled away and under a car.  
"Me? Nah, nothing really," he said, hunching his shoulders to make himself smaller and reminding me of the boy on the day I'd first met him and the layers I'd peeled clean from the impression I'd had of him.  
"We're both lying," I said after a moment and surprising myself with the light hearted honesty of it.  
"Yeah we are," he laughed as if relieved I'd noticed it too. "Hey!" He called, seeing Cameron up ahead and Morris uncertainly standing at her side. "Where have you been? Mom says we gotta get home right now. What's up with the car?" He noticed it parked beside her and her familiarity next to it.  
"Cameron stuffed some dead guy in the trunk," Morris said, caught in his questions and intrigue of it while balancing his weight back and forth in uncertainty if he should stay or run.  
"He was following us," Cameron explained like that wrapped up the issue and in our twisted world it almost did.  
"Your sisters dark bro," Morris breathlessly laughed and I nodded between agreeing with him to get him out of the immediate area and pushing him aside with more important things at risk. "You're gonna love the smiths."  
"Yeah, she's, uh, she's really goth," John agreed with a nervous smile and pacing on the spot in his urgency to leave.  
"Get in!" She said, turning her back to us and to the driver's side. I avoided walking too close to the trunk and pulled into the back seat with the smell of cigarettes pressed in the seats and making me desperate to open a window before I'd even closed the door.  
"Just say yes!" John demanded, climbing into the front seat and shutting the door behind him with a sigh as Cameron climbed in next and the scene of Morris skipping and excitedly stepping visible through the back window as we pulled out and drove away.

"He was a threat to us," Cameron explained as Sarah lifted the trunk and exposing the man curled up inside of it with his neck at an awkward angle and his eyes half shut and staring.  
"You weren't kidding," I mumbled, for once wishing she'd made a dark joke and that we wouldn't have to worry about washing another person's blood from our hands.  
"Did he say anything? A name, a location?" John asked, exasperated in the question and pointedly avoiding looking at the man straight on.  
"He said very little," Cameron admitted, meeting our eyes before drawing them back to the man. "And then he was quiet." The side door screeched open and then closed as Derek came in, his shoulders sagging as he sighed and looking quickly at me as if wondering if I was okay but not meeting them long enough to be sure that that was the question.  
"I lose Sarkissian at the Cahuenga Pass," he said, scratching above his left eyebrow and then dropping his heads in defeat.  
"Damn it," Sarah said, her voice broken and the slam of the trunk shuddered like she lost the anger for it half way through. "We have to find him."  
"We have to get out of this house," Derek said, eyes going over the roof though it was the garage we were standing in and not the house.  
"No, we're not moving," John disagreed, his jaw tightening in frustration and desperation as he broke the issue before it could be named.  
"He knows where we live, John," Derek told him, trying to be kind but his own desperation defeating it.  
"I don't care," John insisted, speaking through clenched teeth. "We're not running, not today."  
"This house has a bulls-eye painted on the front door," Derek said, anger in his voice growing so the both of them were seething and I couldn't tell which to calm or if my efforts would make it worse. I was spared the decision as a phone buzzed and interrupting the tension. Everyone checked themselves in light of the non descriptive ring before the option turned to the dead guy in the trunk and Sarah leaned over to open and take it.  
"Do your thing," she told Cameron, waving it out in front of her like the motion would take her focus.  
"Hello?" Cameron asked, answering it and her voice changed to that of a rougher, older man that was out of place and unnatural when coming from her lips.  
"Are you watching those kids?" A voice questioned over the phone and I felt detached from the fact that I was one of those he mentioned.  
"I got an eye on them right now," Cameron promised, her eyes lowered and fingers gripped on either side of the phone.  
"Well, I think they had someone follow me. No more games. Bring them back her," the man ordered and the connection cutting as he hung up and then Cameron doing the same.  
"Here? Where's here?" Derek asked, speaking first and raising the questions we were all thinking. "Okay, so he's expecting this guy to show up there any minute. And when he doesn't, the first place he's going to come is here."  
"Mom ...," John pleaded, showing his last card and already knowing he failed upon showing it.  
"We can't stay here, John," Sarah said, leaning onto the trunk and raising her head so for the first time I could see how tired she really was and how it claimed every inch of her in its grip so I felt selfish for not seeing it before. "Not while he's out there. It's too risky. I'm sorry." A knock came on top of the thought and Derek pushed me back behind him against the trunk and Cameron went to answer it. A young woman I vaguely remembered from Carlos stepped in, her face silent and frozen with the front of her shirt stained in blood.

"Wait here," Sarah told the woman as the car slowed to a stop and Derek opened the side door. My legs tensed with having been crushed in the seat for so long and I winced for a moment as they touched ground before standing straighter and simply ignoring it. The inside of the cafe was still lit up and low chatter came from the half full tables as we walked inside.  
"Where is he?" Derek asked the clerk, his attention elsewhere and scanning the room that appeared harmless but had learned in experience that it wasn't always the case.  
"Who?" He asked, his voice calm but I could still see the half shut eyes of the man in the trunk and in a frustration that left me blind I fisted my fingers into his collar and slammed his head down against the table so he almost rebounded back in the recoil.  
"He? Need we repeat?" I demanded, my voice lower then a hiss and still clutching his head he pointed to a door to our right that I made my way towards before the others could react. Their footsteps were loud behind me and I used it to distract myself as I saw the shape of empty eyes staring and the counter in my head of another one not saved.  
"John, Amanda go check the offices," Sarah said, coming around a corner and picking up her step as she saw a man stop and run in the opposite direction and away from where we moved. "Maybe he stashed the Turk in there." We split off down another hallway and I gently lead John to one of the closed doors and surprised that I was able to grasp the subdued touch of it when my veins still pulsed with anger. I tried the door knob which resisted my attempts and stepped back to brace myself and then kick at the lock so it splintered and broke and took another shove before opening. I fell in next to the desk and started riffling through the papers and drawers with my fingers shaking, thinking that we were so close to finding it and then that all of this would be over. The Machines. The War. My Part in it all gone and crumbled so I could go back and be normal and never have to face the weight of the world on my shoulders and having to fight while it still rested.  
"Turk, Turk, Turk," I mumbled under my breath, turning upside down a drawer so the papers fell and scattered before something cold touched to the back of my neck and I heard a distinct click.  
"Don't move," a voice said, the tone of it low and rough so I felt my heart rate pulse and carefully raised my hands to show that I was unarmed. Convinced I was his, he pulled the barrel back and I swung at him as hard as I could to knock him out and away but he saw it coming and slammed the metal into my skull before pulling me close to his chest. My vision blinked with pain screaming down my spine as he linked his arms underneath to drag me to my feet and out of the room down the hall. I begged my feet to move at my own accord but he was leading me and all I could see was white and then white and then cold and dark as we were outside.  
"Let her go!" It was Sarah and I blinked rapidly as everything slowly fell back into focus and finding her only several feet in front of me with her gun aimed and face contorted in anger. John was next to her and clutching at her back as if desperate to run over and to me but logic holding him back.  
"Let her go," another voice said and I could see Derek carefully moving from the doorway with his gun on a small and crying girl, his eyes low and meeting mine as they flickered from panic to calm.  
"Not my kid," the man – I was guessing Sarkissian – said, the gun pressing to my ear and his breath hot on my neck. Derek didn't say anything, his eyes still on mine and saying things that broke off halfway and then remade into a new question. He lowered his head over the girl, whispering in her ear before covering her eyes and all at once shooting Sarkissian holding me so his grip broke and his weight fell back. Breath I didn't know I lost rushed back into my lungs and I gasped as it was forced out of me again and John was holding me tightly to my chest.  
"You're okay. You're okay," he murmured, a prayer more than a question as he dug his fingers into my hair and soothing me like a scared child. I awkwardly patted my hands on his back and looking for the girl to see if she was alright as Derek patiently led her back through the doorway, his eyes still on mine and the look in them the same prayer that was on John's lips.

John uncertainly let go of my arm as Sarah called him and followed the sound of it with a last cautious look back. I smiled to show him I was okay but felt at the back of my neck for any injury when he was gone. The base of my skull was tender and I winced as I dropped my fingers and trying to calculate the chances that I was suffering a concussion.  
"You alright?" Derek asked and I turned to look at him, standing next to me with his eyes downcast and looking over me with that same question rattling in my ears.  
"You could have missed," I told him, pain crossed with anger so I stepped close and not considering the internal danger of doing so.  
"I wouldn't have," he promised, his voice low and eyes locked with mine so I once again couldn't look away was nearly reduced to tears at the weakness of it.  
"What about the girl? Were you going to hurt her?" I leaned in so I could whisper it and trying not to imagine what her blood stained eyes would look like and if I'd dream of the possibility.  
"If I had to," he said with an almost shrug like it was a thought that didn't matter and making me angrier still at his tone.  
"She's a child. An innocent little girl and my life doesn't outweigh hers," my voice was louder now and shaking as I could see bodies in mass graves in my head; eyes open and staring at me and accusing that they died for me and that I had done nothing to deserve their sacrifice.  
"You don't get it," he said, almost smiling and almost embarrassed that he was.  
"I know. I'm supposed to marry John and save the world," I said, my voice high and bitter. "But that doesn't mean that everyone else gets to die in my place." I made an angry move to go past him but he took me by the elbow to pull me back and could almost taste his breath on my lips he was so close.  
"No. You don't get it," he insisted, his voice a whisper and for my ears and my ears only. "You don't get the lines that I would cross or the things that I would do to keep you safe. You. Not John." He stood there for a moment, the weight of it hung with possibility that I couldn't measure and no able to move forward or back or an inch away from him because I could still taste his breath and feel his eyes hard on mine. He barely shook his head like coming out of a thought and let go of my arm to walk away from me so my head pounded and my mouth went dry and I felt like screaming and crying for no reason I could name.

The car rolled to a stop and with a grunt Derek opened the side door and held it out for me to follow after. But John moved on the other side first and I followed him to take his hand as he went and ignoring Derek's questioning look as I felt it press itself against every inch of skin like layers and layers of goosebumps.

I tried to turn and look in the mirror at the back of my head but couldn't see any bruise that was visible and even if there wasn't couldn't turn enough to find it. Cameron had said there was no internal damage and suggested some sleep and Tylenol as a sure fire cure to a gun slammed to the back of your head. I dropped my hair back over my neck and crawled over to the bed so I could fit under the covers and touch the gun under my pillow. A gun could have killed me tonight and yet here I was drawing comfort from the same object. But there was sense in irony and I found it when I touched over the trigger and how quickly I could pull it. How quickly he could have pulled it on me and how easily I could have died. Click. Bang. Dead. I played it over like a new mantra before pulling away my hand and turning out the lamp so the only light was a thin sliver through the door. I hunkered down into the sheets to lift them under my chin and found myself staring at the opposite wall and counting down the lives I haven't saved and the futures that wouldn't somehow cross again with mine someday. Was it me today that made people have faith or was it who I'd be tomorrow that had people giving up their life? Was there one monumental thing I did in between that made me worthy of that or would I always be questioning it and asking why me. A footstep creaked at the door and I lifted my head with my hand on the gun as I barely saw Derek's shape pause and wait outside. My heart rate hammered inside my chest as he stood there before slowly settling himself at the wall outside my door. I waited to see what he was doing and what came next as I saw him pull out his gun and turn it for a moment before resting it on his knee and leaving it there, sitting guard outside my door and keeping me safe.

My boots clicked right after the other as I made my way into Johns room and holding the birthday card behind my back. He lifted his head to see me and offered a small smile in greeting.  
"Hey," he said, standing up when I approached and looking taken back when I held out the envelope.  
"Happy Birthday," I told him and his face broke into a grin as he turned it over and slid a finger through the paper to rip it. The glittery card burst out all at once with confetti falling and an obnoxious song made specifically for the purpose blared and he laughed upon reading it.  
"It was the most obnoxious card I could find," I shrugged, pleased that he liked it while comfortable with how simple it was. He closed the pages so the song stopped before opening it again as it started again.  
"Thanks, I love it," he said, still laughing and looking to me with his eyes warm. "How did you know?"  
"Your mom told me," I shrugged, deferring from the root of taking my own credit and giving it where it was due. "She sent Cameron out to get a cake."  
"Really?" He asked, surprised to be hearing it as much as he was for asking. "Wow that's ... that's awesome. I thought she forgot."  
"How could she forget? It's probably going to be a National Holiday one day," I teased and he grinned out how light I made the dark thought before sliding the card back into the envelope.  
"Thanks," he said again, his eyes still touched with that aching warmth and making a shiver roll through me and upsetting my insides. His smile faded slightly as he noticed how close we stood though the look behind it became more intense as he leaned forward and caught my lips all at once. I dug my fingers into his hair to hold him to me and feeling my thoughts shatter into pieces and memory as he kissed me harder and deeper and I returned it of my own need. A sudden sharp explosion cut us apart and I looked over my shoulder and back to the door as the explosion faded before the uncertainty of a car alarm going off and not stopping and a sudden pit of cold that was sinking into my stomach.


	10. Samson and Delilah

I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't tell if it was the explosion or something else but things passed in motion and not sound with something disconcerting about the loss. I somehow knew that John was yelling and as I felt the taste of him on my lips I remembered the fatal words in my head and what they meant: Protect John. I grabbed his hand to pull him behind me and going into the hall that was lit with gray sunlight or smoke. I couldn't tell. Sarah came from around the corner and she was yelling with her lips moving but no sound. Why couldn't I hear her? Why couldn't I hear anything? I could worry about it later though. I needed to protect John. She gestured for us to follow as we went past through rooms and down the hall before the front door opened and recoiling to hit her square in the face. A large man came barrelling around the side of it and I shoved John behind me and away while screaming at him to go. The man held a gun out to Sarah who lay crumbled on the floor and without thinking I tackled him. He fell back against the wall and my mind went blank as I tried to wrestle for the gun and with no other option if I couldn't get it. I had the surprise but that had been my only advantage and it was gone. He shoved me off of him and into the island where the side cracked into my spine and a shock of pain left me breathless. He fisted his hands through my hair and half lifted, half dragged me across the floor as someone else took Sarah and I could only see the blur of my hair as I struggled and kicked my legs out to get a grip. The stairs came up and underneath me and I was hitting each one as we went until I was thrown head first into one of the bed rooms and scrambling for something – anything – that could be used as a weapon. My arms were jerked behind me so my sweater fell over my shoulder and then bound so my wrists ached and burned and I could already feel blood drip down them. Sarah was thrown down beside me and I vaguely saw another shape on her other side. John. A man – the clerk I recognized – came forward and I remembered the force behind my hand as I threw his head down against the counter and vaguely thought: oh fuck. He slammed his hand into my face and I felt the side of it on fire as it started to bruise and a bitter taste of blood on my tongue. I spit so it leaked down my lips and on my chin as he hit me again and pushing me back to force his weight on me and his elbow at my throat. I could feel more then I could hear Sarah and John screaming and I tried to kick at him with my legs but his pressure was becoming harder and I was seeing black dots to cut out his face. Protect John. Whatever happens protect John. Whoever was listening – whoever could help – keep him safe. Not for them. But for me. Keep him safe. His weight came off of me all at once and I was gasping and panting on the floor as bloody spit ran down my neck on the angle and staining into the collar of my shirt. Hands pulled me back and I struggled against them before seeing Johns face above mine and clutching at me with a panic that hurt more then I knew how to bare. He reached away to cut at my ties and as soon as they were gone I buried my face into his shoulder and held him as he rocked me, his face in my hair and fingers scrambling at my back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We were pulled apart and Sarah was kneeling next to us, blood down her lip and sweeping my hair back from my face so I could see her fingers bloody. Blood. My blood. The door ripped open and we turned to see Cameron there, pieces ripped from her face and showing the metallic details underneath with a fire burning behind her and roaring in my ears. She had a gun in her hand and she raised it to point at us – not sure who to hit – and I had enough thought to shove John behind me before the fire exploded and she fell back with the crash. Sarah was grabbing us and shoving us up and to the window and the glass shattered against my side, the curtain tangling with my legs as we were out and through it and down the roof and on the ground so hard I hoped the fall had killed me and that soon I would be dead.

Tires screeched and roared as the van turned screaming down the street and I was thrown against the door to the fifth time and leaving a bloody handprint when I managed to hold myself back. Pain in my ribs was making my vision blur and my fingers were trembling every time I pulled them to see if the bleeding had stopped and panic meeting them when I found it hadn't.  
"Are you alright?" Sarah threw this question at me with a glance and I nodded as she looked back and before she could take a second look. My leg was shaking as I pressed it into the floor of the van and loosened the weight as my breath tightened and tasted of blood. "John, are you alright?" He didn't answer, her eyes went back and forth from the road to him and I tried to feel concern that he was silent but the wheels hit another rut and I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming.  
"Would you answer me?!" Sarah screamed, grabbing his arm and between their grip I could see a car with its lights flashing and pulling to a stop.  
"Sarah!" I yelled at her, reaching past for the wheel to turn it but she got there before as we spun and hit another car that was pulling out and the turn of it throwing me to the floor between the seats. Something heavy pressed into my sight and my vision faded into black dots that pulsed and dimmed as I tried to focus.  
"Are you hurt? You're bleeding," Sarah was talking and I could barely hear her as I tried to get up and seeing the dark stain of my blood already against the seat. Fuck.  
"I'm fine!" John yelled and I saw him look back to me and panic in his eyes before my vision faded again. "Amanda?"  
"I'm fine," I insisted, biting my lip and straightening so my muscles in my legs screamed and contracted where they shouldn't go. Just stay conscious. That's all I'm asking just please stay conscious.  
"We gotta go," a door opened and then slammed and I scrambled for the handle of the door to pull it but my fingers worked out of order and I couldn't get a grip. No. No, no, no please no. It opened for me and John was there with blood down his face and his leg twisted.  
"Come on," he reached in to wrap his arms underneath mine and I cried out as he gathered me to him to set my feet on the ground before holding me when I gave out on the weight.  
"Can you walk?" Sarah asked, at our side and looking over me with a growing confusion that I could be hurt and that the evidence of it was standing before her.  
"Yes." No. I alternated with my weight between each leg with my left side screaming and the other threatening a loss of conscious. Left it was.  
"Good, 'cause we gotta run," she took off on her apology and I winced as I tried to follow her lead, drops of blood coming off of my hip and my legs burning and melding so if I couldn't start then I wouldn't but that if I did I would never stop.

Pressure froze in my shoulder and I closed my eyes against the pain as I tasted copper thick on my tongue and swallowed it back. I took another step and tasted it again – stronger this time and tried not to think about the internal damage I most likely had and that even as I thought this I could be dying from it. But thinking it wouldn't stop it and worrying about it wouldn't make it better. It was easier thought then said though as I took another step and imagined myself simply collapsing dead in the street – a nobody with a fake name barely remembered and sooner forgotten.  
"How are you doing?" John asked, whispering as people slowed down to stare at us as we limped past. A small girl was holding her mother's hand and sucking her thumb while she watched and I tried to smile at and reassure her that I was alright before remembering she'd probably forget about me the moment she looked away and have no idea that my survival might mean something for hers down the line in an untouchable future.  
"Awesome," I gritted, another step making me feel like I was on the precipice of falling to pieces. And at this moment I wouldn't fight it and in the end might welcome it. It was unnerving what pain could do to your sense of survival.  
"We should get off the streets," Sarah told us, clutching her arms and gritting her teeth with each step so the words came off fractured. "Find a safe place."

I choked back a laugh as I stepped through the threshold of the church and holding onto my dark irony of it as we walked past the intricately painted walls and low murmuring of speaking in one of the rooms ahead of us. John held back the beads of a doorway for me and I walked through into the main room where a neon cross stood at the front and center with an image of Jesus hanging from the middle. His arms were stretched above him with his head bowed and I could see the blood painted over his wrists and dripping to his neck. I stopped, transfixed for a moment with comparisons I didn't want to make before John nudged me forward and I made for the lines of chairs and dropped heavily into the one next to Sarah. I pulled my hand away from my side and found it still shaking and bloody with the fabric at my hip torn from how wet it was. I bit my lip to hold back crying out and peeled at the shreds of my shirt to see the shreds of skin underneath. This couldn't be how I died. It wouldn't be fair.  
"Has there been an accident?" I lifted my head to see the priest kneeling on the chairs in front of us and looking back and forth over our bloody appearances. I almost laughed again at the stupidity of the question before deciding it was safe to say I was also suffering from a concussion. The lot of good it did though when there was nothing I could do about it. He said something else in Spanish and Sarah replied the same, shaking her head and taking shallow breaths as I was able to see the extent of her injury. Her arm was shaking as it held onto her shoulder and blood was torn through her middle that was making her wince as it creased with her sit. I looked over to John to check on him as well and he reached the distance between us to take my hand and gripping it tightly on my thigh. His knuckles were bloody and I ran my thumb back and forth over them and even as he winced he didn't let go.  
"We need sanctuary," Sarah said, switching to English and looking to me and John like it was for our benefit. "Can I ask for that? Please? We need somewhere to hide. Now."  
"Yes," he said quietly, his face sad at her pleading and looking us over again before he readied himself to stand. "Of course. Come with me." John slid his arm underneath mine and I stumbled as I got to my feet, still holding his other hand and no thought within me that could make me let go.

I pulled the flowered tea towel away from my hip and turned and folded it again to try and find a side of it that was dry. Blood leaked from it and onto the tile and I found that there wasn't one. I tossed it onto the table and heard it squelch as it landed and started to soak into the wound.  
"Are you alright?" Sarah asked, leaning back against the wall and looking uncomfortable from standing still. Or maybe it was asking the question and the chance that I might give a committal answer in response.  
"I'm great," I told her, the lie more honest then the truth would have been and toying with the edges of the cloth that was soaked through. Blood. My blood.  
"What about you?" She jerked her head at John who was fiddling with the radio and the only non static from it coming in Spanish.  
"You already asked me that," he told her, voice low and still turning the knobs so the static went back and forth before giving up in his efforts and tossing it across the surface. It echoed and clanged in front of me and some response I had – some unconscious reaction wanted to reach out, take it and fix it for him though I didn't know how or even if he wanted me too. And the uncertainty of that hurt.  
"I'm asking you again," she said, trying to smile and shrug it off but going for the wrong shoulder and wincing as she moved it wrong. I reached out to touch the radio and fingered over the buttons while trying to figure out how it worked. I was supposed to lead armies and save mankind and here I was whining about a little blood and unable to fix a radio. I swallowed the bitterness of it and drew back my fingers in self defeat.  
"I'm fine," John insisted, lips moving over his knuckles pressed to his chin and looking at something neither of us could see but playing back and forth over his eyes like a tape stuck on rewind.  
"I think we need to talk about what happened back at the house," Sarah said after a moment, firm on the words in that she needed to ask them and pleading with him not to contradict.  
"No, I don't," he said quickly, not even waiting her to finish before denying them with his eyes still locked on that same spot and whatever he was seeing there.  
"Maybe I need to talk about it," she suggested, looking over to me and making me feel lost about what they were hinting at but weren't saying. Something that happened back at the house that I didn't see and that now they were uncertain to bring up.  
"Maybe you do, but I don't, so let's not," he said, voice hard and softening it as he took note of it himself. He raised his eyes too her and splayed his fingers under his chin in an apologetic gesture. "Please."  
"Then we need to talk about her," she sighed, resting her hands on the back of the chair and her fingers clenching and unclenching. "Whatever happened with the explosion, it's flipped a switch. She's reverted or something."  
"She knows everything," John ceded and aware of how hopeless it sounded when he said it. How high the odds were stacked against us and how they wouldn't come down unless they crushed us when they did.  
"I know," she said quietly, apologetic.  
"Bank accounts. Contingency plans. Weapons stash," he listed it off and I thought of the months I had alone with her and the lessons that she taught me then. How everything I'd learned she had known first and how weak they felt when under the weight of if I made a move she'd know what it was and how to stop it.  
"I know," Sarah repeated, still quiet, still apologetic.  
"How we run, where we'll go. Who we've been, who we'll be. She's ... stronger and faster," his voice built and I could hear everything underneath it starting to crumble in how hard he was trying to keep his voice and firm on not letting it collapse.  
"We have to kill her, John," Sarah burst with the revelation, voice just as hard but running deeper than his.  
"I know!" He stood with the harsh acceptance and slammed a knife into the table so it stuck in the wood and stood on end. I flinched at the violence of it and the room went quiet as the knife trembled and the blood continued to seep from the cloth and slowly making its way across the table and reaching for my fingers.  
"I know," he said again, this time his voice quiet. This time apologetic.

My hands were sweating and I nervously wiped them onto my jeans as they wore into a tear and made the cut underneath sting. John on instinct reached for instinct and in my own I entwined them, waiting and my heart beating faster as the seconds stretched. One, two ...  
"Now," Sarah told him and he flipped the switch next to the opening and sparks burst from the end of the room by the cross followed by a crash of metal that was too familiar to be comfortable and making my skin crawl under its individual layers. Without dwelling on it we ran out from behind the beads to where I could see Cameron collapsed on the stone with the sparks still running out around her and fading as we got closer.  
"Two minutes," Sarah reminded us, running ahead as John slid to his knees and instantly starting to work at digging out the chip.  
"What are you doing?" The priest was back and approaching us in horror, at the fill in the blank pieces in front of him and not enough time for us to fill him in.  
"You have to get out of here," I pulled myself from my half crouch and limping over to him with only the circumstances making me intimidating when I could barely stand. "It's not safe you have to go. Now!" He stumbled back from me and out of the doorway as I felt fresh blood dripping down my leg and the floor uneasy underneath my feet as I looked back to John who was continuing to fumble.  
"70 seconds," Sarah reminded him, almost in panic as she wiped her hands on her jeans and the shade of them coming away dark with sweat as he tried to work back Cameron's hair and grunting as he tried to chip the dull knife into her scalp.  
"The knife isn't sharp enough," he bit at the words so they were fragmented with panic and I found myself reciting "come on, come on" over and over in my thoughts with the confliction that this was Cameron we were trying to kill interrupting the lull in between.  
"Well, push harder!" Sarah half yelled, holding her head steady as he continued to grunt and peel at it, her closed eyelids trembling in the violent action.  
"How much time?" John asked again, anxiously licking his lips.  
"55," Sarah whispered and I held back Cameron's hair so he could see it better and feeling sick at the bloodied synthetic skin and the metal pieces that were barely covered underneath.  
"Oh, wait, I see it. I see it, I see it," he licked his lips again as the knife finally worked clear and he peeled back the skin to show the metal cap underneath with sparse pieces of hair bloody and stuck around the edges. "Screwdriver, screwdriver." I scrambled at the tile next to me where Sarah had dropped it and handed it to him as he tried to turn it into the opening with the two pieces out of shape and slipping from one another.  
"35," Sarah warned.  
"Oh, it's not the right size," John said, lip worried between his teeth as he fought with it anyway and the pounding of the words in my head: come on, come on ...  
"20 seconds," Sarah said, my vision going red as I thought of what she'd do if she woke up and that none of us was in position to stop.  
"Okay, okay," John said, cutting her short and fumbling for the knife. "The knife, the knife." He grunted as he slid it around the edge of the cap and trying to work it under and up. I could see the knife bending in the pressure and his hands shaking as he knew it wouldn't work but was giving it everything he got just in case. "Damn it!" The knife snapped and he threw the broken pieces to the floor where they clattered and broke.  
"We can't do this," Sarah said, linking her arms under John to lift him as Cameron twitched and started to wake. "Come on!"  
"She's waking up! She's waking up!" John pulled me as he ran and to my feet as I stumbled and panted with pain contracting in my middle and making me want to curl up in myself and scream and sob. I ignored it and ran around the chairs as one caught on my other hip but ignoring that as well as we broke through the hall and to the doorway.

Cars screeched and roared as we broke onto the street, Johns hand tightly in mine as we half dragged each other with Sarah on his other side desperately looking back and forth for anything we could use to escape or fight back. We ducked off down a back alley to see a man with his back to us at the end of it, beside him the rusted excuse of a van parked up against the fence. I knelt for a shard of glass that had fallen from a now empty window and clutched it in my hand as I jogged up beside him – slivers of pain working deeper under my skin with his step and holding it close enough on the nape of his neck that the skin went white and threatened blood.  
"Keys," I hissed at him and he held his hand out so I could see them and that he was otherwise unarmed, Sarah reaching over to grab them and shoving the man off before he could take a good look at who had car jacked him.

The van roared down the street and across a corner as I wedged myself in between the two front seats and weighing the consequences of getting locked in a seat belt and potentially dying without one. Sarah glanced sharply behind her and out the back window before back to the road as another car almost intercepted us and making her spin almost out of control to avoid it. I gritted my teeth in pain as the fabric of the front seat ran ragged against my side and leaving a mark of blood that I had no doubt left in stains in half a dozen other places today as well. How much blood could you lose before you fell unconscious? Before you died. I tried to think of the number but my head was throbbing with the screaming of the tires and I found myself back and back to the thought of protecting John and the afterthought of keeping myself alive if possible. Cameron had told me that. Now Cameron wanted all of us dead and wasn't going to stop until she finished it. It wasn't fair. But life didn't work into what was fair and what wasn't. It was what you complained about and what you gritted your teeth and lived through. And this very clearly fell into the second. The tires screamed again as we spun and I lost my grip between the seats to fall back and wedged my arm into the rest to pull myself back up as we roared between graffiti covered back alleys and a wine bottle thrown at the windshield so the colour of it broke and looked like blood. I resisted my urge to lay curled up in a ball and forced myself up as we went through a tunnel and I could see faintly through the window the shape of Cameron standing in the middle and blocking the way. My throat caught and cut itself as I tried to take a breath – to process or think or _do _something but it went blank as Sarah turned, Cameron reached out an arm and it all spun and crashed around me.

Glass broke, metal seared and pain. There was pain and pain again and I was screaming with it and tasting blood. Too much blood. My blood. We stopped and slid and I kept my eyes closed so I wouldn't see – because I didn't want to see. We had crashed. Cameron had killed us. We were dead. Mankind was doomed. We had failed. My head was burning and every inch of me screaming as I lay there, a phantom touch at my fingers curling them back and around thin air. Reaching for something. Holding onto something. But what? What was there to hold onto but a million nameless faces that were screaming at me to get up? To move. To run. To live. That they depended on it. Depended on me. But I couldn't. I hurt and I was done. My fingers opened again and something twisted through them and cut – glass? Was it glass? No, it was wet. It was blood. My blood? Not John's. Please not Johns. Derek's. The name struck funny and I remembered the dripping of his blood as he held my hand and called out for me and the nickname I hadn't known echoing in my head with the screaming voices in between to get up. Manny. Get up. Manny. Get up. MANNY GET UP! I opened my eyes and gasped, blood raw on my tongue as I rolled and spit, glass crunching underneath me and through the window the shape of Cameron coming down into the gully with an uneven limp of someone who had been injured but didn't have the pain to go with it. I grunted and dragged myself to the front seat where John lay crumbled and desperately reached for his neck and his pulse. Please don't say he's dead. Please, please don't say he's dead.  
"John," I coughed out the name and felt it – the flutter under my fingers and nearly cried out with the relief that was more painful than the hurt. He was alive. For now. "John!" He coughed harshly and gasped, fingers reaching out to me on instinct and I pressed them to my lips and pulled them away bloody so their grip smeared when he held tighter.  
"Manda?" He choked and coughed again, turning his head to look at me and his eyes unfocused as blood dripped down his face.  
"I'm fine," I said, swallowing the blood and bile I could taste and looking again out the window at Cameron who was closer then she was before. "We have to go."  
"Mom. Mom!" He rolled to his other side to where Sarah lay and the panic came back to tear me up with that desperation that she was gone and we were on her own. I couldn't do it. Not without her. I wasn't strong enough. Not like her. Never like her. "Mom!" She groaned and turned to him, her eyes sad as she stared at him and tenderly reached out for his cheek. The blood smeared along his face as she touched him before fisting her hand in his shirt and trying to force him back.  
"You have to go. The both of you. Go now," she glanced out the window before back to him, her fingers raw and bloody as she tried to push him away as he fought against just that.  
"What?" John gasped, trying to stay as she fought for him to go and Cameron getting closer with every wasted second.  
"We have to go," I said, sliding an arm around John to ease him back and Sarah's eyes going to me and freezing me, a look one I wasn't used to seeing and even if I had one not so easily identified: A Thank You.  
"Go," she urged as John finally relented and crawling to the broken window and out onto the pavement. I worked my arms back and forth over the glass and metal as my skin ripped and bled before he could reach me and pull me out to his feet. "Go. Go. Go!" Sarah was screaming it after us as he took his bloody hand in mine and the two of us half limped, half ran up the ditch and out of sight.

Our footsteps echoed in the stone, uneven and out of step as we limped and ran, my side dripping feeble streams of blood like it was tired and just wanted to stop. Sarah's screaming came sudden and sharp so he fell to a stop and looked back desperately over his shoulder to where we had left her to die.  
"We can't stop," I told him, hating the words, hating the weight and what came with them that we were alone, dying and defenceless and that we had to run and never stop or those voices would come back and scream at me again. He nodded and kept going, leaning heavy on his right leg as I favoured my left and my fingers crying out for him to let go but the rest of me begging that he wouldn't. I'd stop if he did. I'd die if he did.  
"We need somewhere to hide," I told him, ducking into an abandoned garage with trucks lined up and empty with options wild of what to use them for. Drive away. Escape. She would follow. A weapon. It would give only two minutes. A way to destroy her piece by piece. We didn't have the time or material or even the strength to continue it an option.  
"Come on," I dragged him with me to the truck nearest and fumbled at the door. It resisted and I pulled harder, leaving a smear of blood and wanting to scream and hit it as I realized it was locked and that I couldn't break in. Footsteps came inside the opening and I pulled John down beside me as they echoed and stopped and then echoed again. I looked around for a weapon for something – anything but my side was still bleeding and my head pounding and all I could hear was that voice to keep him alive and the face of the one who told it to me and who now wanted me dead. The footsteps came closer as we shrank back and she passed, head turning back and forth as she assessed and kept walking, that same limp there and that same unnatural element to it that she knew it was injured but didn't know the agony. I pulled around the front of the truck to take him with me and to the other one lined up, silently begging that it wasn't locked. That it was open and ready and that it would take us out of here somewhere safe and where we could rest and heal. I fell against the handle and sank to my knees, biting my lip to keep back a scream as pain recoiled so heavily I retched and panted, my vision fading in and out of focus and the threat of passing out heavy and welcoming. John lifted my head up and to him so he could kiss me and I dug my fingers into his neck to hold onto him and only pulling away when I couldn't breathe and holding on a moment longer even then. Stay alive. For John. I grabbed for the handle again and pulled, nearly crying as it opened and crawling in the front. John came in after me as the door slammed and we both froze at the click. Shit. He scrambled under the dashboard for the keys and I looked for a weapon, the stereotype of truck drivers carrying guns lost and making me angry that it wasn't true.  
"Move," I told him as he came up empty and slid underneath the steering wheel to pull and work at the wires with the lessons boyfriend after boyfriend had told me about hotwiring cars and their pride when I got it right. "Come on, come on." The engine stuttered and then came to life and I spun up into the seat to find Cameron facing me out the window with a wrench in her hand and her arm pulled back.  
"Get down!" John and I fell to the seat as it connected and smashed the glass, coming to a stop on top of me and just another bruise where I'd run out of skin. I sat up again, hands braced on the steering wheel when tires screeched and another truck came roaring through the plastic flaps of the opening with Sarah barely visible through the window. Cameron turned just as it hit and we recoiled back as the truck slammed into the front of ours and pinning her where the wheels still screamed. Steam billowed and thickened over the two and John was crawling out of the broken windshield onto the hood with a screwdriver in his hand and climbing on behind Cameron and already working at the chip.  
"John. John? You can't do this. You don't know what you are about to do," she was saying, her voice flat and calm while the tires still spun and pinned her and the synthetic blood still scarred on her face.  
"Yes, I do," John gritted through his teeth, digging back through her hair and working the screwdriver into her skull. "You were going to kill us."  
"No, John. You can't do this. You're not doing the right thing. This is not the right thing, John. Things are good now. Things are fine now. I ran a test. Things are good now. I'm fixed now. You can trust me now. Everything's good now." It was like a recording, a script read of details given and the meaning lost when she coldly given.  
"What are you waiting for?" Sarah screamed, hands white on the steering wheel as I jerked open the door and stumbled out, my legs bending wrong and seizing as I crawled up on the hood and to where John was still working and Cameron repeating her message and her head twitching with the pressure. The metal was hot and I flinched from it as I got closer and all at once it was over, Cameron quiet and the screeching stopped and the chip rested and in Johns trembling hand.

I stared at it, the chip and Johns shaking and it all came back in a shock that took me down and broke me. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth as I choked on a sob and gasped around it, my heart hurting and my breathing uneven as I felt everything and its weight chipping and peeling at my skin until I was naked and then I was nothing. John slid on the hood and over to me, pulling me into his arms as I buried my face in his neck and sobbed. He whispered soothing noises in my ear as I clutched and clawed as his hair and the pulse on his neck as I felt the assurance over and over that he was safe and alive and not even hearing the voices because I was the one that cared and it didn't matter what they wanted. He was safe. He was here. And he was alive. And he was safe. With me. More tires came then and I looked over Johns shoulder as an ambulance pulled in through the flaps and the doors opened so I could see Charlie and then Derek. Derek froze and stepped back as he stared at me and I heard his name hard in my head as the voices went quiet but telling them before they went that he was not the one who should have made them go silent.

"That's quite an injury you got there," Charlie attempted, trying to make conversation and making it more uncomfortable as he touched on what he should have ignored. I rolled my head along the ambulance door to look at him, my arm rested up above me so he had a better reach of my side and clearing his throat to look away as he recognized it wasn't the right thing to say. I closed my eyes and leaned back as he continued his stitching and tried to piece apart the last few hours so that some of it made sense but too much of it running together and mad so it was all a blur and better that way when it was too painful another way.  
"There. You're done," he pulled back and slid off his bloodied latex gloves to toss them into his pile of medical supplies and then holding up a roll of bandages and out for me to take. "I take it you want to take care of that yourself?" I took them from him and stood up, my shirt discarded and over my shoulder as I limped away from them and to a quiet space alone where I could unravel the bandage and then around my middle right after. Around and around and around ... I held it with one finger and kept it pinned as I went around again to cover it and loosening my fingers to the next layer before the process started again. On the fifth layer I took it as enough and wedged the safety pin through the edges to hold it shut and pressing lightly onto it, feeling into the hurt and the pain underneath.  
"You alright?" I looked up to see Derek behind me and leaning against a rusted post, his arms crossed over his shoulders and trying to keep his eyes on my face as I became intensely aware that I was standing in just my bra.  
"It's a stupid question," I told him, putting the rest of the bandage down and pulling open my shirt so I could tug it back on.  
"I know. Thought I'd at least ask though," he said as he came closer and I tried to pull my shirt on one handed, one holding down the bandage and the other working my arms into the sleeves. "Here." He took the other side of my shirt to wrap it around me and then easing my arm in and holding it straight. I slowly turned to face him and he stared working at the buttons, fingers grazing over my stomach as he worked his way up before reaching my breasts and pulling back.  
"Do you ...?" He gestured uncomfortably to them and I took up his unasked question to finish and aware that he was still and watching me as I did.  
"How did you make out?" I wondered as I came to the last button and fiddling with it as an excuse to not meet his eyes. The collar was frayed and too soft under my fingers and I picked at the loose threads as they came with it and then another and another ...  
"Chasing after you. Not too hard with the destruction you left," he was trying to joke but it came out too honest and we both knew it wasn't funny.  
"It happens," I shrugged and looked up at him, his eyes and the definition of them coming down empty with no word to sum them up. Full. Haunted. Intelligent. Kind. Sad. Derek. They were his eyes and his name to define them. Derek.  
"Yeah," he agreed, looking down to the concrete and this time almost laughing. "It happens."

The ambulance rocked with the running of the wheels and I closed my eyes as I leaned back against the seat and trying to find some safe place to crawl inside myself where it was quiet and it was empty and where I could hear my own thoughts not drowned out by others. Save John. Protect John. Run. Go. It doesn't count if no one's looking. Get up. Stay Still. Skynet. The Future. Machines. Nuclear War. Amanda Connor. I opened my eyes and stared at the flickering light that light up the back of the ambulance and the fuzzy texture that went around it. Amanda Connor. My name. His name. Our name. Our designation. Our title. Who we were and who we would one day be. Fighting the war and leading the army and saving mankind. Over and over my speech and over and over my determination to follow it and the things that interrupted it buried where I couldn't hear them. But I still could. They were still there. Just quiet. Just waiting. Waiting for that moment when I did stop and when it would all come rushing back. When I would be useful to no one and wanted by less. Weak. Unimportant. Forgivable. I let out my breath and felt my side contract with it. We all had our part to play. Our ghosts of the future playing out the moves we enforced and rewinding them as we chose that different path. I could have died today. We all could have. And what would that have done? Would someone else have lead the war or would we have been doomed as soon as the heart stopped ticking and the macabre sinking in? Did it work like that or did we have time? More moves to play and more seconds to waste? More versions of ourselves to send back and warn us and take up where we left off. I closed my eyes again and slammed my head back harder then I intended to shut it all up. I wanted peace. I wanted quiet. I wanted to sleep and never wake up. But like always it didn't matter what I wanted. Skynet. Machines. The Future. Nuclear War. Protect John Connor. Amanda Connor. Me. Not me.

"You know, I saw her do this with the last one," Charlie was saying, standing to the side and uncomfortable as Cameron lay silent and still in the abandoned car with Derek leaning over her and covering her in the thermite. He glanced at me and then back as I pledged myself to ignore and coming to terms that Cameron would be gone and that I should be fine with it before she was. Dead. Gone. Forgotten. An unmarked grave for an unknown name and a blank face. It was what we all were eventually. Graves that if we were lucky were remembered and forgotten if we were not. I shifted back against the car I was leaning on, suddenly comfortable and wishing we were done so I could escape the thought.  
"John, chip," Derek called, hand out and leaning over Cameron's body as John slowly approached him and the chip still fiddled between his fingers. I walked out behind him, his bodyguard again and uncertain with the lines I'd crossed that came with it.  
"The flare. Where is it?" He asked, head down and rocking the piece back and forth before putting it into her hands and between her fingers.  
"Sarah?" Charlie asked, looking back to her and his face shadowed in the dim light.  
"Yeah," she nodded and he reached into his bag to pull it out and slowly handing it over so his hesitation was obvious but almost hidden in perceived caution. John held it in his hands for a moment, looking back to Cameron and that at me with a question written and rewritten on his face and no words to put it to voice.  
"I'm sorry," he quietly told me before he was reaching for the chip and all at once fixing it back into her scalp. I straightened as everyone else realized what he was doing and Derek made a violent move forward and John pulled out a gun to stop him.  
"Back off!" Sarah told him, shoving Derek back and turning to face John with her face terrified and desperate. "John, she'll kill you."  
"There's only one way to find out," he said, Cameron's eyes opening and her muscles one by one relaxing as everyone pulled back and she sat up. John levelled the gun to her face and I tightened my fingers into a fist as I remembered the blank look on her face as she moved to kill us and then the speech that she recited trying to convince us not to do the same.  
"Are you here to kill me, John?" She asked, head tilted to that curious angle and the question in her voice even as it was in her words.  
"Are you here to kill me?" He asked, taking back the question as she stared at him with her head still tilted and taking in the question.  
"No," she said finally, the pressure in my hand not lessened with the assurance.  
"Promise," he said, turning the gun and holding it out for her to take. I stepped forward and he held his arm out to keep me back as she turned the gun over in her hands with her fingers dangerously close to the trigger.  
"Promise," she said, turning it away from him and directed to her and handing it back. He wrapped his fingers around it to hold onto it tightly before switching it to his other hand and reaching out for me with his empty one. I took his fingers in mine and for the first time in hours they weren't bloody. For the first time in hours they were still.

I lifted my head up to the neon sign and let the color of it etch and then burn into my eyes as somewhere private I mocked the blasphemy of the neon cross. The image of Jesus was still frozen and still with his head bowed and I tried to trace along the lines of his arms, the taut muscle of them held in pain and the tears I imagined on his face. I couldn't help drawing the comparison to John and wondered for a moment whether lightning would strike me at the thought. When it didn't I continued. Men born to die for mankind and living with the weight of that sacrifice on their shoulders. Did that make me Magdalene? I laughed bitterly at the idea of the "Whore" and how it would define to me with my history. Was it really so similar? Would it matter if it was or more so if it wasn't? I looked down at my hands and the cuts and bruises on the backs and fronts of them. I wasn't a martyr. I wasn't a saint. I was a child. A girl told to lead an army and a woman who would see it through. I let out my breath, letting it hurt and remind myself that I was flesh and blood. Human. One to be buried and not to be made into statues. Remembered and then forgotten. As people should be. I pulled myself up from the chair and walked into and down the hall when a shadow came around the corner and I stepped back. It was Derek.  
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," he said, dropping a bag off from around his shoulder and then back up as he adjusted the weight.  
"You didn't," I said, not sure what I felt of the thought that maybe it was God to strike me for my thoughts and then deciding I didn't care if he did if only to prove me wrong.  
"Here," he said, holding something out to me that I couldn't see for the distance and dim light. "I think this is yours." I took it from him and held it up to the light and saw that it was the picture of me and Ally with the edges smudged and my face burned. Something terrible welled up inside me and I brought it closer to my chest so I could see the smile on her lips and eyes and something comforting in that it was a memory and thus couldn't be changed or touched.  
"It took me a couple of hours but I knew it was important to you ...," he trailed off and I touched the lines of her face – memorizing the smile to them and how I remembered it when I couldn't match it on my own.  
"Thank you," I looked up at him to smile but was struck by how still he had gone and what had caused him to go silent. My lips parted to ask and before I could breathe he was close and then too close and then his lips fast and hard on mine. I froze as he touched me, his hand on the back of my neck to pull me up against him and his name like a heartbeat in my lungs saying it over and over _Derek, Derek, Derek ..._But then he was gone, taken back with his thumb trembling over my lips and a sense of loss that made an ache crumble in my chest. He dropped his hand and walked around and past me, my heart still so loud I almost didn't notice Cameron staring and looking curious and that same name that wouldn't go quiet. _Derek, Derek, Derek ..._


	11. Automatic for the People

I let the cold water burn into the back of my neck as I turned my head back and forth under the flow and closing my eyes against the bite. Water droplets ran down my back and to the waist of my jeans where it pooled and darkened the fabric, making me want to flinch at the collected cold. I could still remember the screaming from my dreams. The smell of something burning and the tang of old blood. Copper that had almost gone acidic and burned through my tongue. I turned off the water and straightened so the hair around my neck curled and gave off the illusion that I was pretty but would fade when they went straight again. I peeled the now damp shirt over my head and ran my fingers down my side where the bandage had been wrapped and crusted with rusting blood. I pressed on the hardness of it and flinched as the ache went in deeper and released it when it became too much. Still alive. Still vulnerable. Still human. I reached over for the shirt Sarah had brought and pulled it over my head so it sagged around my middle and covered up whatever feminine shape I had maintained. An unfamiliar logo was scrawled across the front and I gave up on trying to guess it as I tugged on the jeans. Purple and green bruises ran up and down both sides of legs and if I had bothered to look longer I would have seen ones to match along my back and over my arms. I gathered my hair up into a ponytail so I could turn to the mirror and see the blackening marks that ran along my nape and down my shoulder as I pulled down the sleeve. I felt the phantom crashes and then the running and the panic that was won out over pain in my chest and made me want to break when I had for so long convinced myself it wasn't an option. I dropped my hair to hide the bruises and tightened my fingers on the edges of the sink. It wasn't. Giving up, throwing down ... those weren't options I was supposed to know. To understand. It was fight or keep fighting and it was run and keep running. No stopping. No considering. No thinking over things that were easier done in action. No straying from the goal and no deviations to make my mind from it. So why did Derek's name keep interrupting the order whenever I had to remind myself of it? I inwardly froze on the name as my lips parted to taste it and I quickly closed it to hold it in. I could remember the look in his eyes, the feel of his mouth and the loss that scrapped me clean as he walked away with the memory and repetition of his name over and over. I wasn't allowed that. Not that or him. Never him. I scratched my fingers over the tile and into a fist so my nails dug into my palms and I could feel the pain drowning out the name. Skynet. Machines. The Future. Nuclear War. John Connor. Protect John. Amanda Connor. No Derek. Never Derek.

He looked up as I came in before turning back, sprawled across several of the chairs and his arms over the backs. I stared pointedly ahead at the neon cross so the glow blurred my vision until even John cut into that.  
"Hey," he said quietly, tossing his head at an angle as if to flick back his bangs before remembering and the reflex standing awkward. "How'd you sleep?"  
"Good," I told him, barely waiting for him to finish asking as I knew the lie on the tip of my tongue and that the honesty was too far down to have been considered. I could see Derek out of the corner of my eye, his back to me but head turned like he was caught between looking back and resisting so he was at that uncomfortable middle where neither of us was satisfied. I lightly shook away the thought and attempted at a small smile. "How about you?"  
"Good," he shrugged, hands buried into his jeans as he tried to flip back his bangs again and stopping half way through and looking embarrassed for forgetting. We stood there for a moment, both of us knowing that the other was lying and uncomfortable that we recognized it and for the reason that we were. I was never more thankful for Sarah as she interrupted right then.  
"You two should go to school," she said, nodding between the two of us and either ignoring the tension or not noticing the palpability. "I'll start on a new place."  
"School? Really?" I asked, my scoff harsher in the words then on my tongue at the thought of sitting confined to a desk and chair when I could still feel the injuries that almost killed me the day before and the reasons why still out of focus and repeated in my thoughts: Skynet. Machines. The Future. Derek ... Not Derek.  
"I think we could also use boring today," Sarah encouraged, her smile more tired than warm but somehow more endearing in that she still applied the effort. "Especially you." She nodded this to John who was distracted and staring after Cameron who was standing by the window with her attention outside it.  
"What about her?" He asked, gesturing in her direction and his tone raising his meaning even if his words didn't.  
"Last thing she is is boring," Sarah commented, barely having to turn to know who he meant and making me aware of how small our world really was. "I'll keep her with us." She glanced at me on the last address and I took her meaning from then look: protect John. The Future. Skynet. Machines. Nuclear War. Keep John safe. Derek looked over the back of the chairs again and I got a glimpse of his expression as John led me away and how hollowed out I felt not to look back and remind myself of it. Not Derek. Never Derek.

People chattered and called to one another over and through me so that the mundane and simplistic parts of conversation went harsher when in contrast to my thoughts. Homework, lunch break, babysitting, boyfriend ... and then me. Contemplating the end of the world and how heavily that decision rested on my shoulders and the choices I made by them. I stopped in front of my locker to finger over the dial and the minuscule numbers carved into the center. 25, 14, 12 ... Simple. Easy. Three numbers and no more difficult to remember than anything else you've ever learn in your life. How to tie your shoes. To close your eyes when you went underwater. To not look directly at the sun. April 21, 2011. Another number. Another easy one. Judgement Day. The one that everything led up to and where it really began right after. This was all warm up. Practice. But we had to get it right. I lifted my head from the dial and looked up and down the hall at everyone laughing and talking to one another while making it to their next class. They had no idea. None. How easy it was, how lucky they were ... how vulnerable. Any of them. Except me and John. He cocked his head to the side to look down at me and the question half formed on his lips that he wasn't sure whether to ask: are you alright? No. I had nearly died yesterday. I wanted to die. To give up everything and anything that mattered because I was in pain and I wanted it to stop. They wouldn't be here if I did. Something would have changed, some switch or recoil from the decision and it would have all come tumbling down after. And yet here I was, at school pretending it didn't happen and trying to figure out my locker combination. Derek. But there was Derek. I slammed my fist against the locker so I felt the metal bruise and shoved my way through the crowd as I heard John calling after me. The bell drowned out the rest of my name so it fell sharply silent and in the rush that followed the alarm I lost him in the chaos.

The wet sand unearthed underneath my toes as I swung my footprints wide and uneven from one another across the length of the beach and the even colder waves taking away the evidence and soaking the edges of my shoes. I kicked at it so the sand scattered into the water and separating the patches of white that crested and then faded. I set the case of beer down at a safe distance before throwing myself down next to it and feeling the dampness already sinking it. Someone laughed down the far end away from me and I listened to it carried on the wind until it faded and the screaming of a seagull replaced it. What would happen to all the birds? Would they die in the impact or afterwards? I grabbed one of the bottles and untwisted the lid so the ridges tore at my palm. Didn't matter really. They'd all die anyways. Today or tomorrow or four years from now or five years if they were lucky. Everyone died. So why bother fighting for those few extra minutes just to die at the end of those? I scoffed at the self pitying thought and tipped the bottle back to take a gulp and grimacing at the harsh bite. Another bird called and I drew my fingers through the sand so they fell in clumps when I spread them. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I jerked at the sound before pulling it out and flipping it open. John. Again. I tossed it next to me and took another deep gulp so that this time I almost choked and had to force it down. The Future. Machines. Skynet. Nuclear War. Protect John Conner. Amanda Connor. Me. Didn't seem so terrifying when I listed it like that. Like a to do list that you never got around to but always promised yourself you would. Get married. Lead the army. Win the War. Simple. I traced my fingers out into the sand as chunks broke apart and revealing the dryer layers underneath. I used to love the beach. Would run into the water as fast as I could and cry when we went home. Ally hated it. Sat on the blanket and whined until it was time to go. I took another sip and twisted the bottom back and forth to bury it and keep it steady while I dug up the sand. An A – then an M – another A – a D ... Amanda. My name. I started carving out the R before stopping and clawing it out and replacing it with the C and then O's. Connor. Amanda Connor. I stared down at the name and felt an incredible rage inside of me – a hatred that my vision darken and my insides hurt as I looked at the name and all the terrible weight it carried. The Future. Machines. Skynet. Nuclear War. Protect John Connor. Amanda Connor. Me. Not me. That wasn't me. I wasn't a wife, or a mother or a soldier or a leader ... I was me. A girl, a kid. Amanda Connor, an insignificant excuse for humanity who had myself to look after and myself to lose. Not humanity. Not the whole world. I rest my head on my knee and blinked back the thought as it weighed down on me as if testing how far it could go before I broke and suffocated. I couldn't do this. I didn't want to do this. To run, to fight, to win ... I wanted to hitchhike across the US, wanted to read every one of the classics, wanted to see the ocean and swim out as far as I could go, I wanted ... Derek. I raised my head on the numb and stared out across the grayness of the water and trying to see the other side. I could feel his lips on mine still, the pressure at my neck and the look in his eyes as he watched me go this morning and how I wanted to stand there and memorize him and how even that wouldn't be enough. Never enough. What I wanted I couldn't have and what I needed wasn't important. It never was. It never would be. I pushed myself off of the sand and angrily brushed my hands over my eyes and let the wind blow my hair and tangle it over my face. Derek wasn't in the reminder. Even my own name was at the end to fill up space. It wasn't about me. It wasn't about him. It was everyone else and it always would be. Never me. Never him. I ducked to grab the handle of the case to leave my half finished one behind and turning to grab my phone. I should probably call John back. Apologize, tell him where I was and promise to make it out to him. I could remember his lips as well but then I remembered Derek again and it tore at it until I couldn't tell which one it belonged to and which I wanted. Stupid. My fingers closed over my phone and I lifted it to scrap off the dirt while hoping it still worked. Kind of hard to explain if I had to ask Sarah for a new one. I lifted my head to find the easiest way to look up and noticed a Tattoo parlour across the dock from me with peeling letters across its title. I dug my fingers along the lines of the cell for a moment before starting to make my way up and towards it.

I cleared my throat at the heavy set man with the multiple piercings and he slowly raised his head to look and almost looking like I wasn't enough to hold his attention so that he could go back to his business.  
"Can I help you?" He asked, eyebrows raised so the action tugged at the stud and up into his forehead so it got lost in the wrinkles.  
"Yeah, I'd like a tattoo," I told him, setting the case up on the counter and his eyes flickering to it. I waited for him to comment on it, the hint that I had been drinking and thus not in the right mind to be making permanent decisions. He didn't though and only shrugged, gesturing me over to the table so I walked around the counter and after him.  
"Do you have ID?" He asked, settling into the stool beside it like it was an afterthought to ask and he didn't care whether I did or not. I handed him the ID John had reworked and he squinted at it for a moment before handing it back.  
"You know what you want?" He wondered, turning to the table of tools and started to fiddle through so they audibly clattered.  
"Yeah," I nodded, fingers into my pockets now and scratching at the worn insides so the fibers went soft under my nails.  
"Alright, up on the table," he said, lifting one of the needles so the point of it glittered in the poor light and leaving me to follow his instruction.

The loud music and clatter of pool balls hitting echoed off of me as I stepped into the bar with the smoky air fading out the details of everything while making my eyes and throat burn. I could see Sarah settled by the bar, beer in hand and leaning close to a balding man that I assumed was Greenway though she had lacked a description on the phone. I tugged my hair back away from my face and turned my way through the sprawled crowd so my shirt chaffed painfully against my lower back and making it sting. He had mentioned keeping the bandage on but I had taken it off as soon as I'd left. I didn't want another bandage.  
"Well, look what we have here," one of the men by the pool table called, leaning on the cue and approvingly looking me up and down with a low whistle that I assumed was supposed to be a compliment.  
"What's a pretty thing like you doing all alone?" His friend asked, leaning on the green of the table and the poor light shading his face though I doubted he was any more attractive then the first one who had spoken.  
"I'll play you," I said, ignoring the question and nodding towards the in progress game. I tried to remember everything I'd ever learned from hustling pool with boyfriends over the years before deciding I didn't care. This at least wasn't about winning.  
"For what?" The first guy, asked eyebrow obnoxiously raised with the unspoken suggestion while clicking his tongue against his teeth.  
"A beer?" I offered, fingers into the waist of my jeans to ease it lower on my hips so the bones stood out. Both of their gazes dropped to follow it and I thought of all the times – all the men – I'd had to use this for in order to get a bite to eat or a place to sleep. But it wasn't about that. Not this time.  
"You're on," He gestured me forward with a grin and I walked over beside him as his friend rearranged the balls while casting glances at me and the low cut of my shirt that my breasts curved over. This was familiar. This was easy. This is what Amanda Reid did. Not Amanda Connor. She would never stoop to this level. Amanda Reid would. This is how she survived.  
"Now, the trick of the game is ... hey, man back off she's ours," the first mans attention went over mine and I looked back over my shoulder to find Derek standing beside it with his hands fisted at his sides and his expression hard as he tried not to look at me.  
"Actually, she's not anyone's," he corrected, staring him down and his hand going back to his jacket to show the gun he had tucked into his belt. The first man noticed and took a step back while his friend wasn't so observant.  
"What, you're her boyfriend?" He asked; scoff tight in his throat while making Derek and me stiffen. I looked down at the alcohol stained carpet and ran my fingers along the slivers of the table while at loss of what to say.  
"I'm her uncle," Derek said, teeth locked as he answered. "And she's underage. Back off." He didn't wait for them to do it themselves though and gripped my elbow in his hand to steer me away and through the tables away from even where Sarah still sat. I stopped at one of the tables, far enough away and gritted my teeth my discomfort and trying to find an excuse to fill it. His hand dropped from my elbow before I felt it again at the bottom of my shirt and over my lower back where the barcode tattoo was still printed and raw from this afternoon. His fingers sent a shock up my spine and along my skin and I jerked back to shove him away, heart pounding and making me dizzy.  
"Don't touch me," I told him through my teeth, thinking of his lips and his pressure and the hunger in my chest for more, more so much more that I couldn't have and least of all shouldn't want. I pulled away from him and the table and through the crowd as I heard him call out after me but lost him as I had John had earlier but something there that hadn't been before that made me want to turn around and go back.

"Manny ...," he tried once more as I jogged through the front door and up the stairs like I'd been there before and knew the layout though I only had the address. I ignored him as I passed the corner to the second floor and being left to guess which one before turning to the first open door and shutting it behind me. I leaned against the wood and closed my eyes as my heart pounded in my ears with that same list that made no more sense than if I'd said them out loud and replaced with his name said over and over: Derek, Derek, Derek. No. Not Derek. Never Derek. I pulled myself away from the door and took the chance to look around at the bed in the corner and the cluttered dresser up against the wall. I walked over towards it and drummed my fingers over the surface which my reflection repeated it in the mirror. Her fingers in it were bruised, scarred, hurts that weren't yet forgotten and reluctantly remembered still permanent on her skin. I looked up to face her and tilted my head as I tried to place her and whether or not we knew each other. Hair, eyes, mouth, nose ... nothing special. Ordinary. Scars, cuts, bruises and wounds ... damaged. But still not special. It wasn't me and never had been. It was who I'd end up being. The phantom I couldn't touch who somehow was so important. Who was she? How did I become her? Was questioning it how I would or was it supposed to be a secret until it was too late? I turned away, not liking the questions and turning to the bed where they'd tossed my bag of meager belongings and sitting down next to it. I pawned through the contents to find a couple of clothes Sarah had gotten me, a tooth brush and that photo copied picture of me and Ally with the burned face that Derek had rescued from the fire. I settled back onto the pillows, running my finger over the image so the ash smeared and darkened over our faces so it obscured the detail and I couldn't tell who from whom. I liked that girl. I missed that girl. The one that laughed and smiled and had questions she wasn't afraid to ask. She was just Mandy then. Daughter and Big sister. Not Soldier. Not Leader. Not Wife or Mother. Just Mandy. Just Me.

I rapped my knuckle onto the door frame and in the awkward gesture spilled the coffee over the rim. It slid down the edges to burn my fingers and John rolled over to look up just as I winced.  
"You okay?" He asked, voice harsh from sleep and clearing his throat after he asked.  
"Coffee?" I asked, holding it up to demonstrate so it spilled again and burning my other fingers. A small smile tugged at his lips as I winced again and I felt warm acknowledging it but not as much as I did from knowing I encouraged it.  
"Thanks but no thanks ... experience and all that," he laughed as he said it and I nodded, knowing the offer was hollow as I made it but somehow remembering that it was the thought that counted. "You can come in though." He nodded at the bed as he rolled into a sitting position and I walked over the race car style rug with the Lego pieces strewn over top.  
"Nice room," I congratulated, settling on the end of the bed and placing the two mugs on an upside down container so the top / bottom of it sagged.  
"Yeah, it's a real winner," he said dryly, raising his eyes to the colourful frame and the toys upending in various states of play around the room. "I hope yours is better."  
"If by better you mean age appropriate then yes better," I teased, curling my legs up to my chest and smiling as he did so it was mutual and felt more honest than if one of us had done it alone. I winced again as the footboard pressed against my lower back and pulling taut the tender skin.  
"You alright?" John asked, leaning closer in concern with his fingers reaching out to hold my ankle and keeping me there. I turned on the offer to lift the back of my shirt and I felt him tense as I showed it to him and he took in the intimacy of the gesture.  
"A barcode. Like Derek's," I stiffened as he mentioned him, for most of the morning preventing myself from doing just that but finding it now presented to me and no less harsh then if I had thought it alone.  
"Not like Derek's," I corrected, turning back away and pulling my shirt back down. "Like ... like mine." He cocked his eyebrows as he leaned back, vocalizing the question without saying it and waiting for me to answer.  
"It's a way of identification. Individuality inside conformity. Or something," I laughed at how dumb it sounded and how poorly I was explaining it. Not Amanda Connor. Not Amanda Reid. Just a name. A barcode. Vaguely different from everyone else's but at a distance no difference. Not special. Not unique. Normal. Ordinary. "I don't know. I guess I just liked the idea." I ran my fingers over the folds of his quilt and tried to remember why I'd gotten it and why it seemed like a good idea. Why I'd purposefully gotten drunk and egged on men twice my age. Because there was no reason. Because it was stupid. Because it wasn't part of a plan or the plan and I did it because I wanted to. Because I did. Not being told to and not suggested by anyone else. Mine. No matter how stupid it was or how much I regretted it after the fact.  
"I like it," he said, voice quiet but stirring me out of the thoughts so I looked up at his eyes going warm.  
"Thanks," I murmured, looking back down at my feet and then at the teddy bear beside me with one of its eyes missing and fur soft. I lifted it up in front of me and tilted it back and forth to imitate puppetry and he laughed so I threw it out him to make him stop. A throat cleared itself at the door and we stopped to look and my veins went cold and turned as Derek stood there waiting, looking uncomfortable and fingers fisted in the frame.  
"There's something you need to see," he jerked his head back down the hall and turned and left before we could answer with his footsteps echoing after.

My eyes traced back and forth over the bloody names and taking them in with ticks like down a list and reminding myself of them to add to the first and a reminder of what I was doing and why. Greenway. Alpine Fields. DRB Sherman. ... All people. All places. All something we needed to know that fit into the vast space between now and then so the image wasn't thin. Sarah walked up to the slate so her boots crunched on the cement and lay her fingers over a three dot symbol so they spread at an awkward angle so they could all fit. I repeated the names in my head over the rest of her shape, something pounding in my head louder and louder with his pulse so my whole body thrummed with it as much as it did knowing that Derek was on my other side. We weren't alone in this. I wasn't alone in this. Amanda Reid. Amanda Connor. Whatever I wanted to be called, whoever I wanted to be named I wasn't alone. We weren't alone. There were people out there like us who knew more than we did and were solid shapes in a future that used to look so phantom. I let my breath out slowly as Sarah backed up and back into the line of the five of us staring at the wall. We weren't alone anymore. I wasn't alone. The Future. Skynet. Machines. Greenway. Nuclear War. Alpine Fields. DRB Sherman. Protect John Connor. Me. And Derek. Not Derek ... Derek.


	12. Mousetrap

I ducked into the fridge so the door clattered open on my hip and riffled through the half full containers of left over's as dull pain seized in my leg and pinning me to the spot. I allowed a grimace of my only acknowledgement before moving aside the stack of Tupperware and then the milk and finding an unopened beer bottle hidden behind it. I slid it out and past everything else to close the door with my foot and going for the wrong one so my hip ached like the first time hadn't been enough of a reminder. I turned back around to the counter, glimpsing Cameron through the doorway and uncertainly standing in the middle of the living room with her head tilted. She had something about feeling the house moving and I had left it at that, not comfortable with asking farther when I could still notice my recent cuts and bruises and the knowledge that it was her actions that caused them. I shook off the unnecessary thought and pulled open the drawer to look for the opener. It clashed with the other miscellaneous tools and I slid it onto of the lid to crack it open before letting it clatter back onto the table. I raised the rim to my lips, staring out the window at the shadows moving over the porch and catching a glimpse of Derek working just outside the shed. I slowly lowered the bottle, his head bent over his work and the lines of his muscles tensing and relaxing as he went back and forth. Something harsh twisted up inside my throat and I turned my back on it to take another sip as Sarah walked into the kitchen with her arms swinging at her sides.  
"Not very healthy," she commented, nodding at the bottle pressed to my stomach with her eyes widened to carry on the reprimand.  
"Neither is getting shot at," I shrugged, taking another sip and not in the mood for her silent list of my failings this early in the morning. Her face visibly hardened along the lines of her jaw and she walked over to pry the bottle loose from my fingers and handing me an apple from the bowl in replacement of the loss. I glared down at it before cautiously lifting it to take a bite as she turned away and footsteps came in with John hurrying their pace.  
"Did you get Kacy's TV set up for her?" Sarah asked, not turning to see who it was and busying herself with something in one of the drawers that I couldn't see from where I stood.  
"Yup," he answered, setting the tool box he took with him onto the island and leaning in closer to kiss me with his lips lingering over mine. "Morning."  
"Morning," I smiled back at him, his lips close enough still that I could taste his own and his nose brushing on mine before he pulled away.  
"And yeah ... about that," Sarah said, turning back and noticing the intimate moment and no doubt about to voice her displeasure with it. "No sex in the house." John scoffed as he turned away, embarrassed by the suggestion while I left it silent the obvious loophole that it left the rest of the planet available.  
"I hope you didn't steal cable for her," Sarah continued, treading carefully over the awkward break and walking over to the table to address John straight on. I made to duck around him, grabbing back my beer with my apple filled hand and grabbing his ass with the other so he jerked in surprise and Sarah audibly sighed. I crossed over the threshold and into the living room where I tossed myself onto the couch and very nearly missed spilling the rest of the beer all over myself.  
"You should be more careful when carrying open bottles," Cameron informed, head still tilted as she surveyed the room and her arms outstretched as she carefully turned.  
"I'll remember that for next time," I told her, leaning over the table for the remote and switching on the TV to ignore the discomfort twisting in my stomach. I flipped through the channels as she turned away from me to face the screen and dropping her stance to watch as the station changed. I settled it onto a news channel and took another sip of my beer as I watched her out of the corner of eye, aware of how defenceless I was sitting there and how uncomfortable I was of the realization. A news reporter came onto the screen, the volume low so I couldn't hear what she was saying but a picture coming up behind her that I recognized and making my muscles tense inside my skin. I quickly turned up the volume so the sound of her voice and what she was saying became louder:  
"... Has been missing since this morning. Sixteen year old Miranda Winnick was last seen at a California City turn off with a friend of hers who has little information on what happened to her friend or who took her. Officials say ..."  
"Miranda Winnick," Cameron repeated, the name losing any affection on her tongue as her head tilted again, staring at the screen. "You used to be friends with her." I leaned forward over my knees, staring at the screen and the image of her with her face lit up. I hadn't seen her in years. She was older now – the time jump that hadn't touched me or John or Sarah adding its weight to her so her face had matured and her face growing longer. How old had she been when I had seen her last? Seven? Eight?  
"In the future you mention her. That you used to babysit her and her friend," Cameron was still talking though I only heard it in pieces as I stood up, my heart pounding achingly in my ears and making me dizzy.  
"What happens to her?" I asked, taking my eyes away from the screen and to her face as she turned to look at me with her expression confused that I'd had a sentimental reaction. "In the future, what happens?"  
"She dies. Cromartie kills her. You grieve the loss," she explained, head dipping as she said it so her chin pointed at me and using the physical gesture to aid in the absence of emotion. So simple. So straightforward. She dies. You grieve.  
"How do I stop it?" I ask, the gears of my thoughts already turning and almost desperate as I tried to piece a plan together. She couldn't die. Not her. Not now. Not ever.  
"I don't think ...," she started, voice quieter as she tried to sympathetically sway the thought but I grabbed for her wrist and tightened before she could finish.  
"How. Do I. Stop. It," I bit off each word, my heart pounding in the spaces between it as I felt the hard touch of her wrist stiffen under my fingers. Her eyes flickered back and forth over my face and it dawned on me how dangerous it was for me to be weaponless and this close but I swallowed down the idea and the edge of fear that came with it.  
"Your friend was with her when it happened. Call her. 705 955 2783. She can help," she recited the information as if off of a list and somewhere distant in my thoughts it occurred to me that it actually might have been what she was doing. I nodded, dropping my grip from her arm and flexing my fingers as thoughts formed quicker then I could process them and almost painful in their urgency. I waited another beat, letting them settle as my heart rate and pulse went erratic before turning on my self confirmation and running back up the stairs.

The steps clattered under my feet as I ran down them, bag slinging over my shoulder with my gun tucked into the back of my jeans and pressing its way into my lower back.  
"I'm going out, mourn me if I die," I called out to Derek, his back to me still in the shed and pacing my footsteps to lead me over to the driver's side of the jeep. He spun as he heard me, the gun he was loading still clutched in his hands and lowering as he saw me.  
"What?" He asked, coming out from underneath the overhang with his shirt sticking to his back and stomach and hair darkened with lines of sweat. I tossed my bag over my shoulder and into the back, pointedly not looking at him and sorely tempted to break it.  
"I'm going out," I said again, shrugging at him as I wrestled the keys from my pocket but his footsteps quickly shuffled over to meet mine and pulling me back so my arm was pressed against his chest and his head lowered down closer to mine.  
"Going where?" He repeated, his breathing heavy with his nose almost brushing mine as I tried my hardest to look anywhere else.  
"A friend of mine has been taken. Cromartie's got her," I explained, tripping over the words as I said them and waiting for the moment of clarity where he'd let go and I was dismissed. He scoffed lightly, hands still holding me with my arm tensed where his fingers were pressing into my skin.  
"You don't have any friends," he pointed out, head tilted down to mine on the other side so a shadow ran itself tender down his neck.  
"Ouch," I dryly told him, working myself free and jerking back. I took an unsteady step backwards on the stumble and wrapped my fingers around the door handle, swallowing hard against a sense of unease resting in my throat. "Cromartie's got her. I'm going to get her back."  
"What friend? Where? How do you now he's got her and how do you know it's not a trap?" He asked, hands tightening and relaxing as he tried to grasp the situation and questions.  
"I don't. But she's friend. A girl I used to babysit she's missing, he's got her and I'm going to get her back. I'm meeting the girl who was with her at a fruit stand on the California City turn off. Come if you want but I'm going," I wrenched open the door as I finished, the offer an attempt to stall him though I saw him working through it even after I asked.  
"Wait, just wait," he called back over his shoulder, already running back to the shed and throwing things into a bag.  
"Hurry up," I told him, sliding into the driver's seat and plugging the keys into the ignition. It growled in response as the engine started and then Derek was at my side.  
"I'm driving," he said, opening the door and edging me away from the seat.  
"I can drive," I defended, nonetheless settling beside him as he shut the door and tossed his bag into the back with mine.  
"I've seen you drive," he scoffed, jerking us out of park with the jeep groaning and protesting and finally rolling down the driveway.

I rolled my wrist underneath my chin before resting it back onto the sill as a breeze of dusty air came back to hit me in the face and making when I swallowed taste dry. The wheels rolled over a bump and I leaned my head back against the seat to feel the recoil, working the tension over between my thoughts and trying to figure out a way to break it.  
"So are you going to explain in more words now or should we go through another 20 miles of quiet," he asked, his voice sudden in the near quiet and I looked over at him with his arm rested over the steering wheel and focus shifting from me to the road.  
"I already explained. Cromartie took my friend. Now we're going to go save her," I explained, leaning my head back onto my wrist and knowing that it wasn't enough to sate him and then wondering why I bothered.  
"Yeah, but that still leaves a lot of loose ends," he said, making a noise between a scoff and a laugh. "Like, how do you know it's your friend? How do you know Cromartie's got her? How are you going to find her?" He paused, turning the last question over in his head as if debating whether to ask it. "How do you know she's not dead?" The quiet that came after buried coldly in my stomach and I stared back out the window until the dust made my eyes water and only then letting myself blink.  
"If you're not going to tell me I can just turn this car around," he offered, sighing as the silence stretched.  
"Then I'll walk," I challenged, leaning back again and taking a breath.  
"I'll carry you," he countered.  
"And I'll scream," I finished, rolling my neck back against the seat to face him and let him know I wasn't giving up easy. He turned his attention back to the road, almost smiling and I felt the look of it curling up under my skin and loosing itself inside my chest. Not okay.  
"So what's the plan then?" He wondered, switching arms over the steering wheel and squinting out the driver seat window.  
"Find Miranda. Save her. Don't get killed," I listed off, the steps seeming concrete in my head but aloud with too many missing in between.  
"And how are you going to manage all that?" He asked, looking away from the road long enough to raise his eyebrows at me before returning his gaze. I followed it for a moment before realizing I had to answer and rolling it under my tongue.  
"With guns," I affirmed, my voice coming out quieter then I intended and a great deal less sure. Find her. Save her. Don't die. It somehow seemed more difficult when narrowed down in such broad steps because I knew the gaping holes that went between them. It wasn't like with my daily recitation. Machines. Skynet. The Future. Nuclear War. Protect John. What was missing? John. John was missing. And that made more than half the difference.  
"Genius," Derek dryly mumbled and I smiled.

I slammed the door shut behind me as dust billowed around my ankles and tried to sweep my hair back from my face as another breeze tangled it again. I walked around the front of the jeep with my boots scattering my footsteps and seeing Amelia uncomfortably pacing and moving back and forth from the shade to the sun. My pace slowed and I was seeing her in fragments from now and eight years ago. She'd gotten taller obviously, her hair had grown out, her steps had gotten longer and even now she couldn't sit still. But she was afraid now. I'd never known her to be afraid. Even now it had taken a moment to make sure that that was what it was.  
"Amelia?" I called, quickening again and past a man carrying a grate who dodged out of my steps with the produce he was holding dangerously swinging. She turned and the two images of her fractured so I wasn't seeing either of them properly and wondering which one I was approaching.  
"Mandy?" She asked, the steps loose under her feet as she came towards me and I suddenly had no idea what to say. How to explain the last eight years or how I could possibly Miranda when the police couldn't or that I wasn't the same person that I was and I couldn't even reconcile myself enough with her to pretend.  
"Hi," I said finally, close enough now to hear that she could hear me with her gaze stuttering in uncertain glances. Her eyes were rimmed red and her hands were outstretched and trembling. I didn't know this girl. I'd never seen her before. But in that sense she didn't know me either. We were strangers.  
"You barely look any different from the last time I saw you," she breathed, stepping back and sniffing as Derek came on my other side and his shadow awkwardly running over us.  
"Neither do you," I lied, trying not to settle on each feature and comparing them to what I remembered. Her eyes were watery, her nose was longer, her lips were more lopsided and the freckles were covered in makeup that was already caking in the sun. "This is Derek. He came to help." He nodded at the introduction but she didn't look at him to acknowledge it. She was still staring at me, comparing features as I was doing to her and finding no difference where I saw too many. But I wasn't the same. Neither was she and the physical drew that comparison to a close so we were both looking at strangers and uncertain how could that be.  
"Why don't you start off by telling us what you know?" Derek interrupted, clearing his throat and squinting over the dusty lot. I swallowed and stepped back, sweeping my hair back again and remembering myself where I had monetarily forgotten. I wasn't her anymore. Not Amanda Reid. I was Amanda Connor. A Solider and a Leader. And neither had time to reminisce.  
"Okay," she said, wiping her face and clearing her throat as she gathered her bearings with her hands closing and opening as if physically holding them. "We were hanging out and just ... I don't know trying to pick up guys?"  
"At a fruit stand? Off a highway?" Derek asked, skeptical and almost laughing on it. I forced back my own comments, the two girls I used to know shrieking and giggling at the thought of boys now looking for them off the beaten track. Literally.  
"Yeah," she said, stopping to glare at him and something that I recognized enough returned that I felt both better and worse. She was still there, somewhere – just lost under all the years. "Anyway and I went inside to get something to eat and then I heard her screaming. I ran back out and there was a guy taking her and our car and ... and just driving off into the desert." She gestured off the highway and I followed her gaze until it blurred on the horizon. She could be anywhere.  
"What did the guy look like?" Derek asked, arms folded and patience fraying as I knew he didn't want to be there to begin with and wasn't doing a good job of pretending otherwise.  
"I don't know. Tall, dark hair ... kind of old. Like him," she nodded at Derek who looked mildly offended, making me bite back a smile and the comment that chronologically I was older then he was though she wouldn't understand it.  
"Does that help?" She asked, looking back to me and her eyes pleading with me so I couldn't look at her straight on. I looked over the dusty lot, squinting at the men pacing sluggishly back and forth across it and the highway that stretched forever on both sides.  
"Yeah, it helps," I told her, turning back and trying to smile at her but every reason not to prevent me from properly doing so.  
"Don't lie to her," Derek said under his breath, taking my arm so he could turn into me and say it though I knew she could still here. "If he's got her then she's already dead and if it wasn't him she's probably somewhere a lot worse." I raised my eyes up to him, his lips so close so I was remembering what could happen next and the denial twisting up inside of me.  
"We don't know that," I poorly excused, his arm flexed holding me and the tattoo standing out. The barcode that we'd recognized him for and that matched the one on my lower back. His had been inflicted. Mine was barely earned.  
"Yes we do," he insisted, his voice quieter and almost softer so I was struck with that he was trying to be kind and how uncertain it was when he meant it and it was on purpose. She couldn't be dead. She couldn't ...  
"That's my phone," Amelia suddenly said, grabbing for her pocket and pulling it out so I could see the black printing on the back of her name and a heart. She flipped it open and held it up to her ear, brushing her hair aside. "Hello? Mir? Mir is that you?"  
"Make sure it's her," Derek told her, dropping his hand and turning away with the comment as if it was a suggestion he wasn't sure how to address. She barely glanced at him, holding her hand over her other ear to hear her better.  
"I can't ... I can't hear you. Mir? Mir? Are you okay? Where are you?" She turned away from us, kicking up her foot steps as she continued to listen. "Mir? Mir?" Derek moved so quickly I almost didn't notice until he was pulling her back and her hand away from the phone.  
"Make sure it's her," he told her through clenched teeth, staring her down with his eyes hard. She swallowed hard as she looked at him, not looking away but every muscle tense in her face and begging that she would.  
"Mir? Miranda? What was the park called where Mandy took us where it rained?" She asked, lifting the phone again and staring at him as he backed off. He ran his fingers back through his hair and stopped a safe distance away, giving us space but close enough that I could still feel him tense in the heat. "We were seven? It ruined my favorite shirt and my mom got mad. Where was that?" She waited, eyes flickering before she let out her breath. "Fenwick. Yeah. Yeah it's still me." I looked back over the lot again, remembering how dark the sky had gotten and how scared they were as they clutched my hands. We were soaked in minutes and ran home shrieking and skipping through puddles so we were even wetter than necessary. It was the last time I had seen either one of them. A week later I was gone.  
"Mojave?" She asked, her voice tighter and I looked back again, pushing back the memories deeper where they belonged. "The 14? Yeah? Yeah Mandy's with me. Yeah, our Mandy. I don't she ..." She looked back at me, checking that I was who she thought I was and even after still uncertain. She cleared her throat and looked back to the phone. "We're coming to get you. I promise. We'll be their soon. Okay, bye." She hung up the phone and stared down at it for a moment in her hand, her fingers visibly shaking as she clutched it while trying to steady her breathing.  
"She said she's outside of Mojave," she said finally, swallowing and taking another breath. "Five miles off the highway by a billboard for a law firm in an abandoned building. She says he's still there." She finished and stared at me, waiting for me to fill in what came next and unsure whether or not to trust whatever it was.  
"Then that's where we go," I nodded, already working it through and left with the same suggestions of find her, save her and don't die. We'd already filled in half of the finding her step, it was the not dying one that had me slightly worried.

The Jeep jostled over yet another pot hole and I dug my fingers into the door to hold myself steady as we righted again and Derek's jaw tensing from the temporary trauma.  
"So ...," Amelia drew out, nestled between the two front seats in the back and her fingers tapping on either one. "Are you two a thing?"  
"Uncle," we both called out at the same time, his glance meeting after mine and the air suddenly tighter so I had difficulty breathing.  
"Uncle," I repeated, swallowing down the beat after the word and looking out the window again to ignore it. The scenery looked the same as the last time I'd checked so it was hard to tell that we were going anywhere though Derek seemed more convinced that we were.  
"So how are we going to get her out?" Amelia asked, breaking the silence again and apparently unaware that it needed breaking to begin with. She looked between the two of us, nails scratching at the leather and rasping in the beat.  
"With guns," Derek said, a smirk pulling at his lips as he glanced at me and I couldn't help grinning as the tension broke.  
"Yeah, but shouldn't the cops be with us or something?" She asked, picking up on that we were more willing to talk and shifting more comfortably in her seat. The Jeep pulled off onto a dustier road and the bumps under the wheels became more frequent and more violent.  
"It's probably better without the cops," I explained, sitting up farther in my seat as I could see the remains of a ramshackle building coming into view. The edges of it were worn out and dusty and if I hadn't been looking for it then I would have seen it – so perfectly blended into the landscape.  
"How come?" She carefully asked, now the one to sound uncomfortable as Derek pulled us to a stop and killed the engine.  
"Cops are a little stingy when it comes to breaking the law," he said, undoing the keys and the metal rattling in his hands. "We're not." He jerked his door open on that note and I was turned to look back at Amelia who seemed paralyzed in her seat and looking there was more danger in the car then what stood outside it. I tried to reassure her with a smile but what was coming next prevented it and I pulled open my own door to break the silence. I came around to the back where Derek was working and pulling the guns out that he had backed and testing each one for which would work best.  
"You didn't have to be so blunt," I chastised, taking the gun he offered and checking that it was loaded even if I knew he had. Force of habit.  
"Her best friend was kidnapped while checking out guys from a machine in the future that you're supposed to fight as the leader of humanity," he said, each word dry and almost dripping with it as he held his own gun under his arm. "Blunt was needed." He brushed past me and around to the front as she climbed out of her seat and stepping back as he got close. He went ahead to the door first and I followed after with Amelia on my heels, coming so close we were almost tripping over each other. Derek held out an arm to keep my paces farther behind him before jogging up along the side and in through the doorway. I waited – counting for any disturbance to tell me to run or be on my guard before going after on hearing none. Damp hair caked my lungs as I stepped in and blinked rapidly trying to adjust. Derek moved quickly from wall to wall, always turning and never leaving his back open as he aimed his gun from each opening before stopping directly across from us. He glanced through the doorway that separated the main wall and mouthed "Miranda" at me so I followed after. I looked through after where he did and vaguely saw a young woman with strawberry blonde hair tied to a chair before I had to pull back. I closed my eyes, running the name over my lips and the knowledge that it had been years since I had seen her and that there was time for introductions and reminisces later when all four of us were safe. I opened my eyes and moved to go first but Derek held out a hand to stop me "mouthing" waiting and going ahead of me so I was forced to trail after. Loose nails and boards kicked loose under my feet as Derek ran off to the side and Miranda turned to look at me and given a pained sigh in relief. I dropped to my knees next to her, my gun over my lap as I examined the wires wrapped around her legs and the pieces coming together. I looked underneath the seat before sitting back and letting out my breath slowly. Fuck.  
"They never let you have a good day, do they?" Derek sighed, standing by the window and coming to the same conclusion that I was.  
"Don't touch her," I told Amelia, hand out to stop her as she reached close and looking over the wires again and the plastique it was pressed into. I knew enough to make a bomb. A very small one with minimal damage but this ... even John wouldn't be able to figure out this. I pushed back onto my ankles and carefully reached out for Miranda's face to peel off the tape and a breathless sob escaping as I did.  
"Thank God," she gasped, trembling as her breaths came uneven and caught between laughing and crying. "Thank God, Thank God, Thank God."  
"Don't move," I told her, crushing down any sentiment I wanted to give into as I crawled around the chair to look at the bomb from all angles. The chair was rigged onto mouse traps with wires wrapped around her and then connected underneath. It was good. Too good.  
"I'm going to look around," Derek said, cutting the panic for the moment and the soft murmurs of Miranda crying while Amelia tried to soothe her. "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, go without me."  
"I'll wait twenty," I said, choking on the words and the implications of them if he didn't come back. He stared at me for a moment, waiting to argue before nodding and disappearing down the other hallway. I came back around to the front of the chair, biting back harsh words and tempted to throw my gun through the window with how useless it was going to be.  
"Miranda, I want you to listen to me very carefully," I told her, trying to remain calm and knowing my best way of keeping her so was mimicking it myself. "No matter how badly you want to ... whatever you do you can't move."  
"Why?" She asked, tears rolling down her cheeks and looking back between me and Amelia. "Why ... why can't I move? Who was that guy and what did he want with me? Why are you here? Why ... how do you look so young?"  
"Genetics," I mumbled, coming around the other side to look under the chair and finding the same results mirrored. Fuck. "Now I need you to promise me you won't move. Can you do that?"  
"Why? Ames? Ames? Why can't I move? What's going to happen if I move?" Her breaths were coming out in sobs now and even that was jostling her legs in the wires. I gripped her knees to keep her still and tensed for a moment with the panic that it was the wrong move. When we didn't blow up however I was able to relax a fraction of an inch.  
"You're wired into a bomb," I told her, saying it quietly in hopes she wouldn't hear but knowing she had to if she had to know the seriousness of the situation.  
"A ... a bomb?" She choked out, her sobbing picking up again and her legs trembling as I tried to hold her steady. "Oh my God ... Oh my God ... I don't want to die. Please, please I don't want to die."  
"You're not going to die, Mir," Amelia promise, reaching out to touch her face before nervously pulling back. "You're not going to die, I promise, you're going to be just fine." She looked over at me to repeat it, somehow thinking if I did then we'd all be alright but I ignored the implication instead running through my head anything that was useful with less than half of it that was relevant now.  
"Amelia, I want you to go into the back of the truck. There's a bag there. With red handles. I need you to bring it," I turned to look to her, hands still resting on Miranda's legs and trying to soothe her when I didn't know how. Amelia shot a panicked look between the two of us before stumbling to her feet and out through the hallway and door. I looked back at Miranda, forcing a smile that was more grotesque then comforting and turning again under the seat for any detail I could use.  
"What are you doing here?" She asked, her voice quiet but somehow like a scream in how silent it was. I pricked my ears to hear any sign of Derek in the next room and comforted when I heard him shuffling.  
"I saw your picture on the news and I called Amelia. I promised that I would get you out," I avoided looking at her, avoiding saying it to her face because if I did I'd see the terror and know how responsible I was for stalling it. But I could do it. I had to. If I had to save millions of lives tomorrow then I could save one today. _This_ I could do.  
"You don't look any different. Eight years ... how is that possible?" her breathing was easier now but still spaced by seconds that felt hollow without it. She was terrified. Like that day in the rainstorm she was panicked and she couldn't hold my hand this time and have me tell her it was going to be okay. It wouldn't be enough.  
"It just is," I shrugged, best avoiding the complication of the time jump and staring down at the mouse traps and any thought of how to disengage even one. One maybe but all four? At once? Fuck.  
"Who is that man?" She barely titled her head back the way Derek went and licking over her sweaty lips. "Is he your boyfriend?"  
"Uncle," I half growled, touchy on the implication and the situation as a whole. Footsteps rapidly came back into the room and I clutched for my gun as Amelia barreled back in and stumbled back as she saw the threat. I lowered it as I recognized her and she tentatively came forward to drop the bag at my feet and kneeling down after.  
"There's something wrong with the car," she said, digging through the bag and stumbling over the words in her panic. "I think he messed with it or something. We'll have to walk." I settled back as she continued, her actions fading as I turned it over. Why kill the car? It didn't make any sense ...?  
"What?" Amelia asked, stopping with her hand raised and a wrench in her fingers.  
"We're not that hard to kill," I said quietly, the deaths I'd seen and caused playing back for me and how simple it had been at the time. "Why mess with the car and not us?" I weighed it back and forth before reaching under the chair and ripping out the "plastique" as they both screamed "Don't." It softened in my fingers as I turned it, the wires still attached and the rest of us relatively unscathed.  
"Modeling clay," I said through my teeth, throwing it away from me and disgusted by the panic and the ploy that had encouraged it. Miranda fell back against the chair, breathless as she gasped and Amelia looking close to tears. I got to my feet and pulled a switchblade out of my boot. "Cut her loose." I tossed it to Amelia still closed as she urgently began working at the wires and ropes. I pulled out my cell phone to dial John's number and holding it to my ear as I nervously ticked on the back.  
"18 November," I said as it clicked on and Johns breathing on the other line.  
"2007," he answered and my breath came out painfully at the sound of his voice and the reassurance that at least for the moment that he was okay. "Where are you?"  
"I'm with Derek. Listen ... I think Cromartie found us and I need you to stay away from home," I fisted my fingers into my hair and paced back and forth on the rotting logs with my heart beating so fast I was almost choking on it. If Cromartie found him ...? If I wasn't there to protect him ...?  
"You're scaring me, what's going on?" His voice rose in the questions and I could hear him pull closer to the phone as if proximity to it was a reassurance he desperately needed. "Are you okay?"  
"I'm fine," I told him, looking back at Amelia and Miranda who had finally gotten free and was pulling the loose wires off of her arms and almost smiling with the delirious sense of relief that usually came after you thought you were going to die. "I just need you to be okay though. Find Sarah, stay with Cameron and whatever you do don't go home. Stay out, somewhere crowded and stay safe. Okay, promise me?"  
"I promise," he said, swallowing back his questions and having to be satisfied that knowing he was safe was enough. Because it was. And for me it always would be. "Just promise you'll be okay too, okay?"  
"I promise," I told him, not knowing it was a lie until after I'd said it. You couldn't promise someone else your well being. Not when it was out of your hands and not in your own to control. But neither was his. And now wasn't the moment to think on how much that terrified me. "I'll call you when I can." I hung up the phone, slipping it into my pocket and letting out a harsh breath. He was okay. Whatever happened next John was okay. For now.  
"Bomb!" Derek yelled from the back hall, shattering the thought and his footsteps coming hard after. "Run! There's a bomb! Run!" I shoved Amelia and Miranda ahead of me as the walls suddenly seemed close and confusing when the floor violently upended beneath me and I hit the ground hard, tasting blood.

I gasped and then coughed, bloody spit running down my lips as I clawed my fingers into the floorboards and trying to lift myself. Something heavy was pressing on my back and I arched back to move it before it groaned and I knew it was Derek. He raised himself on his arms to lift off his weight and I crawled out from under him with my arms and legs raw and screaming as they dragged.  
"Amelia? Miranda?" I called, coughing after the names and gasping through them. I spit and wiped my mouth as I unsteady rose to my feet and finding the roof collapsed and half gone and a cell tower that hadn't been there before collapsed in the remains. "Miranda? Amelia!"  
"I'm here," a voice coughed and I reconciled it as Amelia as she pulled herself to her feet and wiping a hand over my mouth. "I'm okay. Mir?" I looked back around me at the ruins and trying to clear my thoughts as my ears pounding and body ached. Derek was unsteady on his feet behind me and I rested on him for a moment before still going, somewhat calmer now that I knew he was okay.  
"Miranda?" I tried again, kicking aside metal pieces and freezing when I saw the twisted and bloody body underneath it. Mir.  
"Miranda? Miranda!" Amelia was still screaming and I unsteadily stepped back, assaulted with a grief that reached its fingers up into my stomachs and tore my apart from the inside out. She was gone. She was dead.  
"We have to keep moving," I said, shoving it down where it couldn't hurt me and coming to and back on my feet. "Come on, we have to keep going."  
"They tapped your call," Derek coughed, wiping his face and panting behind me. "He has John's number and the code."  
"Where's Miranda?" Amelia screamed, nails digging into my arm as she tried to push past me as I attempted the opposite. "Where is she?"  
"She's dead," I told her, the words harder and colder aloud then in my thoughts and making me want to double over and cry until there was nothing left. She froze, staring at me and her lips working as she held back tears. "We have to go." I shoved past her and through the remains of the last standing wall, the rubble becoming dust under my feet and the damp cold again the sun.

I jogged up ahead of them closer to the highway and pulling my gun out of my back pocket with my bloody fingers clutching it. The car stalled as it saw us come closer and I raised it so the threat was visible and my expression telling that I was serious.  
"Get out of the car," I yelled, the words biting in my throat so I tasted more blood. Get to John. Protect John. "Get out of the car now." The man raised his hands and began to climb out but not fast enough as I jerked open the door harder and shoved him out. Get to John. Johns in danger. I climbed into the driver seat and tossed a water bottle between the front ones to throw down at him before slamming the door. Amelia crawled through the side door ahead of Derek who settled into it as she climbed into the back. I jerked the keys before pressing on the gas, the wheels crying out underneath us as we rattled and cracked over and down the highway.

I swept my bloody fingers over my face, tasting iron and trying to breathe easier when I could still hear the ringing in my ears and the sound of John promising to be safe and then Miranda begging that she wouldn't die. But she was dead. And I couldn't change that. But John was alive and I had to save him. Protect John. Get to John. Save John.  
"What are you doing?" Amelia screamed, past the shock and into the panic as she clutched the driver's seat and in doing so my arm. "We have to go back! We can't just leave her there."  
"She's dead, she's a body there's nothing we can do," I told her, the words chipping over my tongue and teeth as the van rattled and dust billowing around the windshield. Get to John. Protect John. Miranda. No, Miranda was dead. John wasn't. Protect John.  
"We can't just leave her! She doesn't deserve that!" Amelia was sobbing now, jerking at my arm as Derek shoved her back and holding her wrist to let her know to stop.  
"There's nothing we can do," he said, his voice quiet and almost gentle and somehow out of place when I could still hear roaring in my ears. Get to John. Protect John. Miranda ... Miranda's dead ... John isn't.  
"Who are you people?" Amelia asked, her voice deadly cold and whatever terror in her voice gone. "What have you done?"  
"Nothing. I did nothing." I was born. I was born and I was decided and never once asked if I wanted it. Wanted to be a soldier, wanted to be a leader or a mother or a wife. I didn't get those options. Didn't get those luxuries of doubt or questions. Nuclear War. Skynet. Machines. The ... the what? I couldn't remember. Skynet. War ... No ... no that wasn't it. What was it?  
"I want out. Stop the car right now," Amelia was talking again, her voice distant as I tried to remember and panicked because I couldn't. What was it again? Who was I supposed to protect? Why couldn't I remember?  
"Stop!" I didn't know who said it – if it was me or Amelia – but I slammed on the brakes and we jerked to a stop that threw us all forward. I fell back against the seat trembling as the back door wrenched open and a hot breeze came back.  
"Amelia," I shoved open my own door and running back after her. "Amelia!" She was walking away from her, her back turned and deaf to my pleas. I couldn't catch up with her, my legs weren't listening and some list – some words I couldn't remember was holding me back even as I didn't know what they were and why they were important. I had just seen one of my first friends – a girl that I had loved die and now the other was walking away from me and I couldn't remember what was more important. If anything could be.  
"Amelia!" The wind stole my voice so this time I knew she didn't hear as her shape faded on the highway, her back still to me and un-listening as the breeze took her name and shattered it into the air.

My knuckles were white as I gripped the steering wheel and my toes clenched inside my boots as I kept them pressed onto the gas. Find John. Get John. Protect John. That was all I needed. That was all that mattered. Find John. Get John. Protect John. A hand came over my fingers and I barely tensed as Derek came into fuller view, leaning closer to slide his hands over mine and far enough over the wheel that I could slide out from behind him. I crawled over into the other seat as he moved into the driver and taking over the driving for me as I curled up against the window. I buried my face into my jeans, tasting the blood and the dust as the road rattled my teeth and made my jaw ache. Find John. Get John. Protect John. Find John. Get John. Protect John. Find John ... Get John ... Protect John ... John ... John ... John ... Derek. Not Derek. Never Derek. Derek.

I jumped down from the back of the van before it had even stopped and stumbling once I hit the pavement. John was coming up the stairs and the darkness of it behind Cameron and pieces inside of me that had never been steady shattered and I crossed the narrow space between us to bury my face into his shoulder. His fingers tightened into my back as he clutched at his hair as I realized distantly that he was wet and that Sarah and Cameron was watching and that lastly Derek definitely was. But I didn't care. John was safe. He was here and he was safe and I didn't care about the future or machines or Skynet or the army we were supposed to lead because I cared that John was safe and he was. He was safe. John.  
Sarah slowly slid the plate out in front of me and I barely noticed it though it clattered when she did. I was staring at the adjacent wall that Derek occupied as he sat down with his own. The chairs moved out on either side of me and I noted that John was in one and Sarah in the other. They were quiet. All of them. Even Cameron. I stared at the wall and the deep lines embedded into it and the near minuscule cracks that said that it needed to be fixed. Who would fix them? What did it matter? In five years the house would be gone and no one would care if it had been fixed or not. No one would care. So why did it matter? Distantly I felt something touch my arm and like a shock it brought it all back: the news, the phone call, the promise that I would bring her back and the promise that I didn't keep. The bomb, the car, Miranda's bloody body and Amelia screaming at me to stop and walking away like she didn't hear me return it. John. Protect John. I shoved away from the table, aware at the last minute that it was John I was pushing away and running out down the hallway and to the front door. No one called after me. No one followed. The floorboards became stone and then gravel under my feet as I scrambled at the driveway and collapsed sobbing. I screamed and screamed until I tasted blood and my throat was raw and then I screamed without sound as I clutched at my chest, begging that it would stop hurting as I remembered the rain and the shrieks and the small hands in mine as I promised that it would be okay and the promise that I couldn't keep.


	13. Update (Not a Chapter)

Hello, I would like to formally apologize for not updating this work for a little while. In the last few months I have moved (twice) started school and started a new job which has taken up a lot of my time. I wrote a chapter but felt it was better unsaid and since then have been trying to write it with limited time and minor writers block coupled with the stress of everything else. I assure you though that I am trying to get it done and will update it the minute it is written. Thank you for your patience.

Sara


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